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Where were you on October 4, 2008? Do you recall? Were your kids even born yet?
I’m sure you’ve already guessed that 10/4/08 was the last time Kansas won a Big 12 road game, and Iowa State has the misfortune of being the answer to that trivia question. Indeed, according to my maths (I sure hope I counted correctly) the Jayhawks have suffered 45 consecutive defeats on the road in Big 12 play - 48 if you count three neutral-site games against Missouri from 2009-11.
Most of those games... ugh. They haven’t even been close. Can Les Miles do anything about it in his first year in Lawrence?
We’ve talked about the offense, we’ve talked about the defense, but there’s just so much unknown right now. Plus, Kansas will be breaking in a new quarterback to go along with completely new offensive and defensive schemes.
How do you feel about KU’s chances on the road this year? A lot of the preseason rankings aren’t out yet, but we do have an S&P+ projection from February 2019 and Athlon’s pre-spring rankings from March 2019. Rankings in parentheses (S&P/Athlon):
@ TCU (34/36)
@ Texas (35/6)
@ Oklahoma State (22/41)
@ Iowa State (43/22)
Kansas is ranked 107/106. Yikes.
Needless to say, things don’t look promising for a conference road win this season. But until the Jayhawks are improved enough to be competitive week in and week out, that makes sense.
How long will it take under Miles? If a coach is going to work out, you can usually tell by year three if not year two. It’s clear Miles has some work to do; here’s hoping he’s up to the task.