Kansas head coach Les Miles made his bones at perennial SEC contender LSU where his third stringers would have comprised a better football team than the Jayhawk starters. It’s unlikely that anything he’s encountered in his career has prepared him for the dumpster fire he’s inherited in Lawrence. He takes to the road for the first time this season in what will likely be a very inhospitable trip to Boston College.
Spoiler alert: The University of Kansas has had an elite level basketball program for decades. Spoiler alert #2: The football program not so much. ‘Mediocrity’ is considered a too lofty goal at most seasons for the Jayhawks football team. Last season was actually the best record a Kansas football team has had in several years. Unfortunately, it was 3-9 though they were reasonably competitive going 7-4 ATS. Before that? 0-12 in 2015, 2-10 in 2016 and 1-11 in 2017. To their credit, all three wins in 2018 came against FBS level opposition. It’s a good thing, since they lost to FCS Nicholls State in their season opener. To be fair, Nicholls is a pretty good FCS team but not good enough that the Jayhawks shouldn’t have won.
There’s likely not a major state university college football program as consistently bad as Kansas. There’s some that struggle at football and others that have had awful seasons along the way but the operative phrase with Kansas is ‘consistency’: Their last winning season was in 2008–one of only three winning seasons since 1996. Here’s a sobering comparison–the National Champion Clemson Tigers won 15 times last season. That’s more victories than the Jayhawks have had in the past 7+ seasons
Kansas is 1-1 SU on the season though they’ve yet to cash a ticket against the spread. Even their victory in the opening game against Indiana State was a disappointment as they were outyarded by the Sycamores though managed to win 24-17 failing to cover as -9.5 chalk. They were then ‘upset’ at home by Coastal Carolina 12-7 as a -7 favorite. In the process, they were shut down by the Chanticleers defense which held them to 280 yards. The Jayhawks are ranked #109 in total offense and 115 in scoring offense averaging 15.5 PPG with just three offensive touchdowns. Since they’ve played a transitional team coming up from FCS that had a losing record last year and a current FCS team that’s not good. It won’t get any better with at BC, West Virginia, at TCU , Oklahoma and at Texas on deck. Kansas has covered 3 of their last 4 as an underdog of +21.5 to +31 points but as a road underdog of 21.5 or above they’re on a miserable 16-31 ATS run. Not much to suggest that Boston College will struggle to cover this price. The Eagles have covered 7 of their last 8 as double digit favorites.
