36 Days Until Kansas Football: Favorite Games Roundtable
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We are quickly approaching the beginning of the Kansas Football season, which means that it is time to start all the preparations for another fun season. It's time to get out (and clean) the tailgating gear, fire up the grill a few times to make sure everything is working properly, and begin planning for the road trips and home games that are going to make up the season.
And of course, that means it's time to identify which games you have to catch, whether it is sitting down on the couch, heading to your favorite sports bar, or heading out to attend the game in person. To help you figure out which games you need to catch this season (assuming it's not ALL of them), I pulled the Blue Wings Rising crew together to highlight the games that they are most excited for.
Which game on the Kansas 2022 schedule are you most looking forward to, and why?
Kyle Davis: There are several decent options. A pre-conference matchup with Houston. The chance to beat Duke in a different sport. But my answer has to be Texas. It’s on Kansas’ Senior Day, in Lawrence for likely the last time before Texas leaves for the SEC, the year after the legend of Jared Casey was born.
The potential one-two punch of ending the Jayhawks’ home campaign with a huge win and having new Texas jokes to tide us over through a long offseason is too much to pass up for any other option.
Brendan Dzwierzynski: There’s a few decent options in my mind, but I think I’ll lean with the Week 2 trip to West Virginia. There was clear, obvious growth and improvement at the end of last season, and against KU’s first legit opponent of the year (sorry, Tennessee Tech) I want to see if that momentum will carry over following a full offseason under the Leipold regime.
If JT Daniels is, in fact, good for WVU it obviously makes that game that much tougher. But it feels like that’s one of the Big 12 games KU can legitimately win. I’ll feel somewhat disappointed if that game is a total dud and we don’t see some real promise in the Big 12 opener, whether that comes in the form of a win, a close game, certain players or position groups showing growth, etc.
Derek Noll: Let’s go with something different. I’ll say the last game of the season at Manhattan against K-State. To me this could be a real test of where the program is. It will be another full season under Lance Leipold, and if he’s as good as we hope he is, a good showing against a good Wildcat team on the road will be a huge positive going into season three where real expectations will be on every KU fans’ mind.
Being competitive against your in-state nemesis is important and Leipold and company can take a huge step in this one. Now, I’m not predicting a win, but the momentum after the inevitable Texas win could help things along.
Andy Mitts: There are a LOT of games that I could highlight here, and I could make a really good argument for basically any of them. And you should definitely check out the ones already mentioned.
However, in the interest of highlighting something new, I'm going to go with the October 1st matchup with the Iowa State Cyclones. Why this one? Well, it's the first home game of the conference slate, the Cyclones are replacing both their quarterback and running back, and there are still questions about who the main options are going to be in the wide receiving corps. If the Jayhawks are going to make some noise this season, they will need a good showing in this one.
Plus, after having attended the game up in Ames in person last year, I feel like this is the chance for Kansas Football to give me something for that. Call it a personal favor.
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