Manhattan — Kansas wide receiver Luke Grimm has been in the program long enough — having witnessed a 55-14 loss to Kansas State his freshman year — to understand what a Sunflower Showdown victory could have done for the Jayhawks.
He and his teammates were one good drive away, on either of two occasions, from getting to experience one for the first time on Saturday night.
After all the chaos and confusion of the first three quarters at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, KU had the ball and the lead with 3:54 to go — then the ball and a chance to drive for a game-winning field goal with two timeouts and a comfortable 1:42 to go.
“You’re right there, and you can taste it, and it’s a different type of feeling than like a normal win,” Grimm said. “We’re at their place, they’re ranked (No. 16), this would be huge for us and it would just tear them apart.”
“And so just to be that close and not be able to close out and execute how we need to execute, it’s just not a great taste in the mouth.”
Head coach Lance Leipold has spoken often about not wanting to put all of his eggs in one basket — that is, if he were to impart too much meaning to a lone game “when there’s more to follow, I just don’t know if that’s the way to go about it,” he said prior to the K-State game.
And now, with the emotional 29-27 loss having unfolded the way it did with the Jayhawks unable to seal the deal late yet again, Grimm, Leipold and the rest of the locker room are charged with moving on swiftly and completely if they want to prove they can be a successful team.
“There’s always moments that we wish we could have back,” defensive tackle Caleb Taylor said postgame, “and the thing that sucks about it is that we can’t.”
They’ll have to put the result behind them, however, without preparing to play in a game, as they enter a second bye week just a couple weeks after the first one.
“We’ll be excited to play our next opponent whether we play them this week, next week or whenever,” Taylor said.
But for Grimm — who referenced similar comments he made after KU’s first bye week, which the Jayhawks went into with a victory over Houston — the longer they wait to play their next game, the longer it’ll take for them to disabuse the world of what he considers an incorrect perception of the team.
“None of us would say that that’s Kansas football out there on those last five minutes of the game,” Grimm said. “College football and all the media get to have 14 days where that’s what they think Kansas football is. And we know that isn’t. And so it, just like I said, pisses us off that we don’t get to go out in seven days and prove it wrong.”
Grimm explained what he thinks Kansas football can be, and what he believes it will be after the bye week: a team that closes out games, something the Jayhawks have been unable to do on six occasions this year, including five in which they held fourth-quarter leads.
“However we got to do it, we’re going to do it,” Grimm said, “We’re going to scratch, claw, bite, chew, whatever it is, we’re going to finish games. Like this game: You can make a play, we are going to make a play just as big, if not bigger, and that’s what we want to be, and that’s what we are going to be.”
It’s not what they’ve been so far. As head coach Lance Leipold put it, “We’re a 2-6 football team right now and that’s not very good, but this team still has a lot of talent and played hard and came up short.”
A miracle run to a bowl game at this point would require knocking off a pair of current unbeatens in KU’s next two games.
For quarterback Jalon Daniels, finishing out games down the stretch will require a continued emphasis on “the little things, the little plays that we’re missing.”
“I’ve said it before when we lose close games: We’re used to being able to make those close-game decisions, making those plays when we need to, and today we came up short,” he said.
“For anybody that was in there that was taking it too personal, you can let it hurt for a night and then wash it all off tomorrow, and we’ve got games to play,” Grimm added. “We’ve got people and teams that we got to prepare for. The biggest thing for us is just we got to stay positive no matter what, and if they’re down, it’s OK to be down for a little bit, but as soon as that next day comes you got to flush it.”
Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels (6) fumbles the ball after being tackled by Kansas State linebacker Austin Romaine (45) during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan. Kansas State won 29-27.
Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman talks to Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels (6) after their NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan. Kansas State won 29-27.
Kansas head coach Lance Leipold talks to an official during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Kansas State Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel