Kansas Football Loss to Cincinnati Ruined Its Big 12 Title Hopes

Saturday's loss to Cincinnati was an emotional roller coaster for Kansas football fans.

The Jayhawks scored a go-ahead touchdown shortly after the two-minute warning, only to surrender a game-winning score to the Bearcats with 29 seconds remaining. The defeat was eerily reminiscent of the 2024 team's late-game struggles.

KU entered the matchup as nearly a touchdown favorite and was widely expected to win. These are not the types of games Lance Leipold and Co. can afford to give away in a grueling Big 12 slate that still features several premier opponents.

No matter what you try to talk yourself into, any realistic conference title hopes the team had likely went out the window with Saturday's loss.

While Cincinnati was far from a pushover, it was one of the weakest opponents on KU's schedule. The Bearcats lost their season opener to Nebraska and their offense had looked stagnant with just 69 passing yards, but against Kansas, quarterback Brendan Sorsby nearly threw for 400 yards and averaged nine yards per attempt versus a defense that was porous all night.

The Jayhawks not only fell to 1-1 in conference play but now head on the road for back-to-back games against formidable opponents. KU travels to Orlando to take on UCF, which handled North Carolina with ease, before facing No. 12 Texas Tech, widely considered the Big 12 favorite after dismantling Utah.

Dropping this game really, really stings, especially since it was one of the more winnable contests on the schedule.

If KU had started 2-0 in conference play, a later loss to a stronger team like Texas Tech, Iowa State, or Utah would have been more forgivable. Instead, it dropped the kind of matchup it couldn't afford to lose.

Leipold has now lost eight of his last nine one-score games at Kansas. In a league where so many contests are decided by only a few points, that number won't cut it if the Jayhawks want to be anything more than a school competing for a mid-tier bowl game.

Many fans had penciled this in as a win, but Cincinnati stunned the home crowd in Lawrence. Perhaps the blowout over a bad West Virginia team misled us into thinking KU had turned a corner.

Of the two Big 12 schools that will be representing the league in the conference championship game in Arlington, Kansas will likely not be one of those teams. Unless this group learns how to manage late-game situations, a rough stretch could be looming.