Kansas Nation
2025 Kansas Football Season Preview
Kansas Football’s unveiling of an awe-inspiring, reimagined stadium has been the talk of the offseason. The 2024 “home” season was played in Kansas City, with two non-conference games taking place at Sporting KC’s Children’s Mercy Park, and four Big 12 games at Arrowhead, the home of the Chiefs. Now two years without on-campus football in Lawrence, the new “Booth”, to which it is colloquially referred, promises to be a special scene on game days this fall. Outside of it being a state-of-the-art facility, which features premium seating, executive suites, chairbacks throughout the west and north sides, a brand new videoboard, detailed story-telling aspects, incredible views and much more, it promises to be more of a home-field atmosphere than Kansas’ trips to the City of Fountains last year.
With all that being said, Jayhawk coaches and players have stressed one thing – it’s time to play – and to win. After a disappointing 2024 campaign which saw KU end the season with a 5-7 record, despite a 3-1 November which featured three consecutive wins against AP Top 25 teams, the hawks are hungry for more. KU’s strengths and lofty expectations begin with their Heisman-hopeful quarterback, Jalon Daniels, who begins his sixth and final season on Mount Oread. While Daniels loses his four top wideouts to graduation and an All-Big 12 running back, one of the best tailbacks in KU history, Devin Neal, he will be thebeneficiary of great talent added in the transfer portal. Alabama transfer Emmanuel Henderson projects to be Kansas top big-play threat, but keep an eye on Ball State transfer Cam Pickett, who I think could slide in well in replacing Daniels’ favorite target, the departing Luke Grimm. Kansas also returns two stout Offensive Linemen in center Bryce Foster and guard Kobe Baynes, as well as running back Daniel Hishaw. Look for tailback Leshon Williams, an Iowa transfer, to play a big part in KU’s new-look offense as well. The direction of the offense will be steered by first-year Offensive Coordinator Jim Zebrowski, who continues to serve as Quarterbacks Coach, a position he held for his three prior years at Kansas. Zebrowski called the plays in Kansas’ 49-36 victory over UNLV in the 2023 Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
Defensively, Kansas will be led by first-year Defensive Coordinator D.K. McDonald, who is in his second year at KU after serving as the Co-DC/Defensive Backs coach in 2024. The Jayhawks return plenty of talent up front, highlighted by D.J. Withers and Tommy Dunn on the interior, and Dean Miller off the edge. Texas transfer Justice Finkley, recently named one of three season captains for KU in joining Daniels and Foster, should be a big time playmaker at the edge position. KU expects to get contributions from returner Dak Brinkley and transfer Leroy Harris III and Alex Bray at the D-End spot also – a spot they feel particularly strong about their depth.While there are some question marks in KU’s back-seven, at least on paper with so many guys departing, the Jayhawks feel confident in transfers Bangally Kamara and Trey Lathan at linebacker, as well as young returning second-year players in the secondary in Jalen Todd, Austin Alexander and Taylor Davis. How well the linebackers and secondary perform will go a long way to determining KU’s success in 2025.
On paper, KU looks to be in good shape from a scheduling standpoint. However, as we saw last year as blatantly as any, the games will be decided on the field. After high preseason expectations, KU had a disappointing 1-2 non-conference season, including a pair of heartbreaking losses to Illinois and UNLV, before dropping four of their first five in conference play, many by one possession. It will be imperative that Kansas starts, at worst, 2-1 in conference play. KU gets a Fresno State team they should beat (albeit one that went to a bowl game in 2024) before hosting Wagner and heading to Columbia for the Border War. Like Kansas, Mizzou is receiving votes in the AP Top 25 in the preseason.
After the Mizzou game, Kansas has their first of three bye weeks, conveniently bridging the non-conference season to the conference season. The Hawks return home for battles against projected middling Big 12 teams in West Virginia and Cincinnati. KU has a great chance to be 4-1 or better heading into their first Big 12 road tilt in Orlando against UCF. Back-to-back road gamesagainst the Knights and Texas Tech, in which you would like to at least go 1-1, would put KU at 5-2 or 6-1 heading into their second bye week.
The second bye also comes at a convenient time, one week before KU hosts K-State for the Dillons Sunflower Showdown, a tilt the folks from Manhattan have won 16 straight years. After Oklahoma State comes calling in Week 10, Kansas travels to Tuscon to battle Arizona in advance of their final bye week. The Jayhawks close out their road slate with a surely-brisk affair in Ames on Nov. 22, where KU looks to knock off the Cyclones for the fourth-consecutive season. The inaugural year of the reimagined Booth will close out on Black Friday, Nov. 28 against Utah.
All in all, it promises to be an incredibly entertaining season for Jayhawk Football. A new stadium, a star quarterback, and playmakers all over the field should make Saturdays in the Fall as entertaining as ever. The offseason has been chalk-full of storylines, but now it’s time to hit somebody. Rock Chalk!
Sean Kellerman