Media preseason predictions sleeping on potential Big 12 contender

The 2023 Big 12 football media poll, the first including the league’s latest additions, continued an odd offseason trend when it released two weeks ago.

Texas took the top spot while West Virginia settled in to last. Nestled toward the bottom half, the Kansas Jayhawks came in at No. 9 with 461 points — two points behind Big 12 newcomer Central Florida.

If this list released a year ago — or anytime in the last decade for that matter — some may not bat an eye at the Jayhawks' relatively low standing among their peers, but this is 2023.

The Big 12 media poll demonstrates another instance of an offseason-long trend of college football prognosticators sleeping on the Jayhawks … foolishly so. “Dark-horse” conference contender lists from USA Today, CBS Sports, 247Sports, ON3’s JD Pickell and Josh Pate also showed little respect for Kansas. Kansas also owns only the eighth best odds to win the conference at +5000, via OddsChecker.

However, with a number of factors in its favor, Kansas figures to be a bigger contender in the Big 12.

Last season, the Jayhawks started the season 5-0 and peaked at No. 19 in the AP Poll, holding that spot for two weeks before tumbling out of the poll for good and finishing 6-7. The Jayhawks' midseason regression coincided with an injury to starting quarterback Jalon Daniels in a game against eventual College Football Playoff qualifier and Fiesta Bowl champion TCU. Kansas lost to TCU 38-31 despite missing Daniels for the entirety of the second half.

The Jayhawks rank second in returning production in the nation, according to ESPN’s Bill Connelly, with 91% of the offense and 80% of its defense back from 2022.

Daniels, the man who made the Jayhawks go in 2022, is part of that 91% returning on offense. The former Heisman Trophy contender received Big12 Preseason Offensive Player of the Year honors from the same group that put Kansas at No. 9 in the conference poll.

Pro Football Focus, one of the few national media outlets to recognize Kansas’s potential, also took notice of Daniels in its conference dark-horse list.

Additionally, the 6-7 record in the second year under head coach Lance Leipold shows that the former six-time Division III National Champion has things headed in the right direction in Lawrence after a 2-10 record in 2021.

Leipold’s history demonstrates as much as well. In his fourth season at Buffalo in 2018, the Bulls went 10-4 and advanced to the MAC Championship Game after going 6-6 the year prior. The Bulls remained at the top of the conference for the final two years of his tenure there.

To make matters better for the Jayhawks in 2023, their schedule ranks as just the eighth most difficult in the Big 12.

With a combination of returning production, a superstar under center and rising star for a head coach, the Kansas Jayhawks are the true dark-horse Big 12 contenders.