12 Days Until Kansas Jayhawks Football: David Jaynes

With just 12 days until the 2018 Kansas football season, it seems only apt to take a look back at #12, David Jaynes, who quarterbacked the Jayhawks from 1971-73. A Bonner Springs native, Jaynes turned down scholarship offers from Stanford, Miami, and Alabama, among others, to stay close to home at Kansas, and what a career he had.

In fact, Jaynes had actually committed to Alabama prior to ending up at KU. He had even signed a conference letter of intent with the Crimson Tide. However, that letter only bound him to an SEC school, but didn’t apply to any other institutions. During an unofficial visit to KU, Jaynes told KU football coaches during halftime of a KU-KSU basketball game in Allen Fieldhouse that he had changed his mind and wanted to be a Jayhawk.

The coaches who recruited Jaynes, Pepper Rodgers and Terry Donohue, left for UCLA after Jaynes’ first year. Don Fambrough took over, and Jaynes led KU in passing for three consecutive seasons, culminating in his senior year of 1973 that saw him earn first team All-Big 8, first team All-American, and finish fourth in the Heisman balloting.

Jaynes is still the only Jayhawk to be a Heisman finalist. He sits fourth in the Kansas career record books in passing yards and second in career touchdown passes (a mere 55 TDs behind Todd Reesing). However, at the time he left KU, he was tops in both categories.