ESPN’s FPI Gives Kansas Football Long Odds to Reach Bowl Game After 1-2 Start

For most Kansas football fans, seeing the Jayhawks reach a bowl game indicates a wildly successful season. After all, it’s only happened 15 times in program history.

But it doesn’t look as though KU will accomplish that feat this season as ESPN’s College Football Power Index (FPI) now gives the Jayhawks just a 15.2% chance of reaching the six-win mark by season’s end. It’s currently the worst odds of any team in the Big 12 with Colorado slightly ahead at 15.3% and Iowa State at 41.4%.

Before the start of the season, Kansas was favored to reach a bowl game with a 58% chance, according to the FPI. Those postseason hopes appear to be all but gone now after the Jayhawks fell to both No. 23 Missouri (38-21) and Arizona State (24-17) in disappointing fashion in back-to-back weeks.

FPI now projects KU to finish the season 4-8, which would be the worst finish to a season since head coach Lance Leipold’s first year in 2021 when the Jayhawks finished 2-10.

If the Jayhawks fail to reach six wins, it will be the third straight season that’s happened for this program after going 5-7 in 2024 and 5-7 again in 2025. Prior to that, the team reached back-to-back bowl games in 2022 and 2023 – the first time that had happened since 2007-08 when KU won the Orange Bowl and then went to (and won) the Insight Bowl the next season.

Consequences of missing a bowl game

If KU fails to reach a bowl game for the third straight season, it could really put a nail in the momentum this program had coming off the nine-win season and bowl victory in 2023.

Even the excitement of a fully finished new stadium for next fall would likely be dampened by a lack of season ticket sales and waning fan confidence that Jayhawk fans would likely have in head coach Lance Leipold and this current KU coaching staff.

Three straight losing seasons and a return to the bottom of the Big 12 Conference isn’t something that is going to get Jayhawk fans in seats, especially when the cost of those seats has risen in recent years and with a fanbase that is often fair-weather when it comes to football.

It could also put Leipold firmly on the hot seat entering the 2027 season.

READ MORE: Why Lance Leipold May Have Reached His Peak at Kansas

As one of the top five highest paid head coaches in the Big 12 and someone who has been given multiple contract extensions, a new stadium, and surrounding facilities that are now first class, Leipold was expected to sustain or build upon his early success – but that’s not been the case these past three seasons.

Many KU fans are already restless with the lack of success, particularly in one-score games and rivalry games, the latter of which Kansas now finds itself at 0-7 (0-2 vs. Missouri, 0-5 vs. KSU) under Leipold in his six seasons at the helm.

The calls for Leipold’s job have already begun, and they will only grow louder if these current FPI projections come true.

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