3 Things That Will Make the 2025 Kansas Football Season an Undeniable Success

The 2025 college football season is nearly upon us as the Kansas Jayhawks look to get back on the winning track following a disappointing finish in 2024.

While expectations for this year’s team aren’t quite as high as last year, there is still a level of success that fans are counting on with the return of starting quarterback Jalon Daniels, the incoming transfers, and the steady guidance of head coach Lance Leipold.

What qualifies as a successful season can vary from person to person, but if KU is able to accomplish these three major things, it will undoubtedly be a successful season for the Jayhawks.

Pack “The Booth”

KU is about to unveil a brand new, multi-million dollar football stadium that has been needed by the program for years. It’s the last piece of the puzzle to the rebuilding job Leipold and Kansas Athletics Director Travis Goff started when they joined KU nearly four years ago.

They’ve done their part in getting the team to perform and getting the new stadium to fruition – now it’s up to the students, fans, and alumni to fill it and create a home-field advantage like this program has never seen.

KU was missing that dearly last year having to play in Kansas City while construction to David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium was under way. But now that the team is back on their home turf – in a stadium that puts fans closer to the field and was designed for increased fan noise – they can have a true homefield advantage which can only help their chances of winning.

Anything less than multiple sold-out home games this year will be a big disappointment.

End the losing streak to K-State

For 16 years, the Kansas State Wildcats have had KU's number on the football field. It’s been one agonizing loss one after another, year after year – and it’s long past time that it ends.

Losing 16 straight to one of your biggest rivals – with half of those losses coming at home – is simply unacceptable. K-State is a good program and has been for the better part of the last 25 years, but they’re not unbeatable like that horrendous losing streak would suggest.

KU has had their chances over the past couple years and arguably outplayed K-State in Manhattan last year and in Lawrence the year before, but they were unable to finish the job.

The Jayhawks have already begun to turn the tide on the in-state recruiting battles, and now (in what will be the first matchup between the two rivals in KU’s new stadium) it’s time to turn the tide going head to head with the Wildcats during the regular season.

Make a bowl game

The Jayhawks failed to reach a bowl game last year after making back-to-back bowl game appearances for just the second time in school history in 2022 and 2023.

It was a major letdown for a KU team loaded with seniors that was a popular pick to win the Big 12 and perhaps reach double-digit wins for what would have been just the third time in school history.

This year, KU has an over/under win total set at 7.5, according to multiple sportsbooks and betting sites across the country. With a healthy Daniels returning at quarterback after playing in all 12 games a season ago, new co-coordinators Jim Zebrowski and Matt Lubick running the offense, and a pretty favorable home schedule, the Jayhawks have a good chance at reaching or exceeding the six-win bowl eligibility mark.

Competing in a bowl game each year is (or should be) the minimum expectation that has been set thanks to the quick success shown by Leipold in his first four seasons as head coach and the resources he’s been given with NIL support, staffing, and state-of-the-art coaching, training, and locker room facilities.

KU needs to make a bowl appearance not only to solidify their success this year, but to help maintain their stellar 2026 recruiting class and their success as a program moving forward in the ever-changing landscape of college athletics.