Kansas Jayhawks

The Kansas Jayhawks are best known nationally for basketball, but the football program has its own passionate following in Lawrence, playing home games at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. Crimson and blue take the field each fall carrying one of the oldest programs in the sport, with flashes of surprising success breaking up longer rebuilding stretches. Kansas's 2007 Orange Bowl-winning season remains a high-water mark that fans still point to with pride.

Kansas has played football since 1890, making it one of the sport's earliest programs, and was a charter member of the conference that would become the Big Eight and later the Big 12. The Jayhawks have never won a national championship, but the 2007 team went 12-1, capped by a 24-21 win over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl under coach Mark Mangino. Kansas has more recently rebuilt momentum under coach Lance Leipold, returning the program to bowl contention in the 2020s.