Kansas football survives, leaves Nevada with ‘ugly win’ and a 3-0 start the 2023 season
RENO, Nevada — If there’s a play that can sum up Kansas football’s game Saturday on the road against Nevada, Lance Leipold mused postgame, it’s that final fumble.
Leipold, the Jayhawks’ head coach, is highlighting the Nevada drive that followed his side taking a 31-24 lead late in the fourth quarter. Although at one point it looked as if Kansas’ defense had recovered the fumble, the ball ultimately returned to the Wolf Pack’s possession because a Jayhawks player who helped make the recovery happen was out of bounds as he was touching the ball. And while that Nevada drive still ended in a punt, and Kansas still went on to win, it was yet another example of something popping up to make the Jayhawks’ night more difficult.
But the challenges that Kansas had to overcome against Nevada, challenges that were too often self inflicted, are easier to digest for players, coaches and fans after a win. Leipold and a few of his players made that clear postgame after their 31-24 victory. In just the third year of Leipold’s rebuild, the Jayhawks have started back-to-back seasons with a 3-0 record for the first time since 1991-92.
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“I mean, it was an ugly win,” junior quarterback Jalon Daniels said. “At the end of the day, we were able to grab that win and be able to put it in the win column. So, we’re not going to complain about another win in the win column and that we’re going 3-0, and looking forward to going against BYU.”
Junior running back Devin Neal added: “How I’m feeling is, honestly, great teams win ugly games and this is definitely an ugly game. But we just got to get back to the drawing board, clean up what we messed up on — self-inflicted wounds, penalties. On the offensive side, just a lot of penalties and a lot of missed execution.”
Kansas entered the game as the heavy favorite, and then watched as Nevada (0-3) kept pace throughout the evening. Although the Jayhawks never trailed over the four quarters of play, they also never led by more than seven points. The Wolf Pack had one more drive near the end of the fourth quarter, after the one Leipold mentioned that had the fumble, and should they have scored a touchdown they would have been in position to either force overtime or go for the win.
Kansas won Saturday because, despite everything that was going wrong, it still made more plays than Nevada. When the Wolf Pack had to convert a fourth-down attempt to keep their final drive of the game alive in the fourth quarter, Jayhawks senior safety Kenny Logan Jr. came up with a tackle for loss to clinch the win. And Neal’s steadiness throughout one of the most impressive games of his college career was something he and his teammates could rely upon as their own offense found its rhythm as the game went on.
It all plays into Leipold feeling that his Kansas side never panicked. He added that his players stuck together. Both are qualities that can serve them all well as the season continues.
RELATED: Kansas football vs. Nevada recap: Jayhawks win to start the 2023 season 3-0
“It was a hard-fought win,” Logan said. “These are the wins that you, kind of, build on. You see where your team’s at. You see how much you grew. You see what you can build on. So, these are the type of wins we’re going to go back to the drawing board and we’re going to try to build on these and we’re going to try to get better.”
The charge to get better comes with the added emphasis of getting better quickly, considering next up for Kansas is a Sept. 23 game at home against BYU (3-0). That’ll serve as the Jayhawks’ Big 12 Conference opener this fall. BYU is also coming in after a win on the road against Arkansas.
But not only is Kansas returning home for that matchup, it’s returning home for a pivotal game that’ll likely be played in front of a sellout crowd inside David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. It’s off to a quick start that resembles how it started the 2022 campaign, which ended up seeing the Jayhawks reach a bowl game for the first time in more than a decade. How Kansas got to 3-0, at this point, isn’t as important as the fact that it is 3-0.
“We could be a really good football team at times,” Leipold said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re as physical as the opponent each and every week. We’ve got plenty to clean up. But we’ve got a lot of different guys stepping up at different times, doing things for us, which is very encouraging.”
RELATED: Kansas football vs. Nevada: Scouting report, prediction for Jayhawks’ road game
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas football survives, tops Nevada for ‘ugly win’ and 3-0 start
