Kansas Jayhawks Football Predictions: Kansas State Wildcats

It’s the Sunflower Showdown, meaning that we all sit around and pretend like this is the most intense rivalry in the history of whatever. While this has been a fairly close contest the last few years, the Kansas Jayhawks have lost to the Kansas State Wildcats the last 10 times they have played. Can they finally break through?

Take a look at what our staff thinks, then give us a prediction of your own in the comments.

Fizzle406: I don’t know how to do these predictions now that Kansas has a good football team. I’ve been a writer for this site for 5 years and in those 5 years these have been easy. Pick the football team to lose every game and the basketball team to win every game. More often than not you will get them right. Picking KU to win over K-State goes against my instincts. Up is down. Left is right. I say hello when I hang up on the phone now. Kansas 35, K-State 30

dnoll5: I’m with Fizzle. This is weird. It’s like that Seinfeld episode where George does the opposite of his instincts. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m walking up to Victoria and proclaiming that I am unemployed and living with my parents. Kansas is going to beat K-State in football. And to make sure that this opposite thing is real, the Kansas defense is going to show up and hold K-State to only an average performance. Kansas 42, K-State 28.

David: It’s been fun watching Kansas look like a real Big 12 team the last two weeks, even if they don’t look like a good one yet. At the same time, I don’t want to overreact. We still lost to Texas due to multiple special teams blunders and horrible defense. We had to mount a 17 point comeback against a Tech team that won’t be bowling this year. K-State is a flawed but still very decent football team and I’m not predicting a season-defining win here. Kansas State 34, Kansas 24

Kyle_Davis21: The offense has finally given us a glimpse of the consistency we’ve been asking for and, despite some of the issues that David correctly pointed out, have kept the Jayhawks in games. So I have no reason to think they won’t stay in this game. I’ve been on the wrong side of many predictions this season so I’m going to take one for the team and pick a KU loss. You’re welcome. Kansas State 31, Kansas 28

Andy: It’s about time someone else joins me with being optimistic. Yes, the Kansas State defense is better than the others they have played, except TCU. But they are extremely susceptible to big plays, which are the bread and butter of this KU offense. Yes, the KSU running game is fantastic. But Kansas has been much better recently.

Ultimately, this game is going to come down to two things: turnovers and big plays. The Jayhawks have been much better with turnovers, and they have a big advantage when it comes to explosive plays, on both sides of the ball. Give me the home team. Kansas 34, Kansas State 31