How did the Kansas Jayhawks’ promising 2024 football season turn so bad so fast?

Kansas football coach Lance Leipold still believes in his team.

The Jayhawks (2-6, 1-4 Big 12) lost in heartbreaking fashion to rival K-State on Saturday, a common theme for a season that has featured five one-score losses.

“We fought our ass off,” Leipold said. “It’s pretty evident this is a good football team and that we lost to a really good football team. This team hasn’t quit.”

For a coach who has bemoaned moral victories all season, Leipold’s Jayhawks have had little positive to take from the season aside from them.

In fact, a Kansas team that began 2024 with Big 12 championship aspirations is now one loss away from being eliminated from bowl contention.

The Jayhawks have been in close games week in and week out. Removing their FCS win over Lindenwood, the Jayhawks are 1-6 with a minus-2 point differential.

Perhaps that’s why this season has been so frustrating for KU coaches, fans and players alike.

“Like last bye week, we are coming off a loss, it really pisses everyone off that you don’t get to play that weekend,” Kansas wide receiver Luke 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. It pisses us off that we don’t get to go out in seven days and prove them wrong.”

Following Saturday’s loss, Grimm said he didn’t believe the last five minutes of the game indicated who the Jayhawks are as a team. But the story of the season has told another story.

Despite flashes of good play — the Jayhawks have led in the second half of every game and in the fourth quarter of all but one — Kansas often has made untimely back-breaking mistakes in attempting to close out games.

Against K-State, the Jayhawks had a chance to run out the clock up one, but fumbled. Then, trailing 29-27 with less than two minutes left, they turned the ball over on downs.

The Jayhawks have been in position to tie or have a potential game-winning score five times this season: against Illinois, UNLV, West Virginia, Arizona State and K-State. The Jayhawks have come no closer than the opposing 39-yard line, which was against West Virginia on a drive that ended in a Daniels fumble.

Not a single time did the Jayhawks score points.

Perhaps a bigger culprit has been a lack of complementary football, with the Houston game serving as the only instance of Kansas’ offense, defense and special teams clicking at the same time.

“You can’t blame it on one of three parts of the game because all three parts are not making plays when they should. So it’s not like one side is doing the heavy lifting and one side isn’t,” Grimm said. “One game, one side we play really good and another time we have a special teams blunder. Sometimes when it gets down to it, our offense (doesn’t) produce when we should produce.”

Now, the Jayhawks are on the brink of postseason elimination. They have an off week to regroup, needing to be perfect (4-0) the rest of the way to salvage an otherwise disappointing season.

It won’t be easy.

After the bye, KU plays two top-15 opponents back-to-back: Iowa State and BYU. KU then plays Colorado, which improved to 6-2 by defeating Cincinnati on Saturday.

The Jayhawks will end their season at Baylor, which has suddenly won two straight games. Kansas last defeated Baylor in 2007. The Jayhawks are 0-10 all-time at Baylor.

Grimm has a clear vision of what he hopes the Jayhawks showcase the rest of the season.

“We are going to finish games. However we’ve got to do it, we are going to do it,” he said. “We’re going to scratch, claw, bite, chew — whatever it is. We are going to finish games.”