Kansas football’s defense started to get stops and Jalon Daniels nearly led KU to a Liberty Bowl win
MEMPHIS — There are moments of Kansas football’s near comeback victory against Arkansas, that instead ended in a 55-53 triple overtime loss, that won’t soon be forgotten.
There’s the onside kick recovery by senior safety Kenny Logan Jr. that set up the Jayhawks’ score-tying drive late in the fourth quarter. There’s the touchdown pass junior quarterback Jalon Daniels threw to junior wide receiver Luke Grimm on that drive, which set up the two-point conversion that made it 38-38 with less than a minute left. But neither of those moments hold as much significance had Kansas’ defense not forced a turnover moments earlier.
Officials reviewed the fumble redshirt junior safety Marvin Grant caused, which was recovered by sophomore cornerback Cobee Bryant. Razorbacks fans at the Liberty Bowl certainly wanted the call on the field reversed. But it stood as a fumble and sparked the run that would take the Jayhawks from down 15 with 2:43 left in the fourth quarter to tied at 38 with 0:41 left.
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In that run of plays that anyone watching could see just how complete Kansas’ fourth-quarter comeback was after the Jayhawks struggled so mightily on both sides of the ball earlier in the evening. Kansas trailed by 24 points at one point in the first half and 25 points in the second. Still, the bowl game trophy was nearly theirs.
“We’ve battled back early in some games this year, but nothing like this in the second half,” said Jayhawks head coach Lance Leipold. “(At halftime) I wasn’t worried as much about the score. It was how we were going to finish this season, and we’re going to play the way we can play, play hard for 30 minutes and finish it the right way. And I can’t tell you how proud I am for that effort, and the resiliency that they showed finding a way to make things happen.”
The 1,284 combined total yards between Kansas and Arkansas set a Liberty Bowl record, just as the 108 combined points did. The Razorbacks (7-6, 3-5 SEC) certainly seemed poised to break some of those records the way they started, jumping out to a 24-7 lead in the first quarter that saw them score more points in a single frame than any other team in Liberty Bowl history. But without the comeback the Jayhawks made, there wouldn’t be as many new marks to speak about with Kansas’ name attached.
For a while, the Jayhawks’ first bowl game since 2008 looked like a disaster. It didn't seem there'd be much to celebrate after a season that showed so much promise, even with the slide after Kansas (6-7, 3-6 in Big 12) started 5-0.
Then the momentum flipped.
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Maybe the Jayhawks go on to win if redshirt senior quarterback Jason Bean delivers that two-point conversion to force a fourth overtime, and maybe they don’t. That’s a conversation that will spiral on in the months ahead. But it’s not a conversation that can take place if Kansas doesn’t get to overtime in the first place, behind Daniels and what became a stalwart defense in the second half.
“I think you go back to the West Virginia game, when that game — the way it turned and it was going into overtime,” Leipold said. “I think when the overtime hit, there was a sense of confidence again. With this group, that’s what I love about them, especially when it starts with Jalon and things that he did for us today. But, yeah, that whole group battled and I think the people got their money’s worth today.”
Finding a way to limit the number of slow starts they have over the course of the season could be what pushes the Jayhawks into that next tier as a program. Right now, they’re a team that will battle for bowl eligibility. And whether it’s someone like Leipold, Daniels or senior linebacker Rich Miller, it’s clear they aren’t satisfied with that.
Either way, they have their motivating force for the offseason. The program is moving forward. And it’s up to them to see how much further it can go.
“It stings real bad,” Miller said. “Yeah, it stings even more because of how much work we put in and how close we were. We feel like we had a lot of chances out there and we couldn’t capitalize. So, that hurts a lot. And just the way we fought back from halftime, it was — you couldn’t even dream of that. We was out there fighting, and that’s all we ask of each other.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Arkansas, KU battle in Liberty Bowl thriller in Memphis
