Dodd: KU football could be the new Mr. Right

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By Rustin Dodd

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Kansas football team’s biggest upset of the season didn’t take place on Saturday against Kansas State.

Sure, watching Aqib “Soulja Boy” Talib and company crank their way into the Top 25 was satisfying, but the football team’s biggest victory of the season came on Monday. For the first time since the first Clinton Administration, the football team overshadowed the basketball team.

Remember the basketball team? The one that went to the Elite Eight last season, will most likely be ranked in the preseason top-five, and has greater expectations than Dickens.

Well, that basketball team starts practice on Friday with its annual Late Night in the Phog. It’s half spectacle, half scrimmage, and it’s the first chance fans have to check out the new squad.

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This could be a historical year in Lawrence. You have to go back to 1995-96 to find the last time Kansas was ranked in the AP Top 10 in football and basketball in the same school year.

But this year, the basketball season can wait. There’s another show in town, and this Saturday it’s headlining at Memorial Stadium at 11:30 a.m. Leading men Todd Reesing and Talib will attempt to keep the No. 20 football team undefeated against woeful Baylor. Kansas football is the biggest show in town. Can you believe it?

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been hanging out on Wescoe Beach, inside Mrs. E’s, at the Kansas Union, or in a frat house dining room, Kansas football has been the toast of every conversation this week. I actually engaged in an outrageous debate over the chain of events that needed to happen for Kansas to play in the National Championship game at the Louisiana Superdome on Jan. 7. Was there any time in the past 10 years when fans could have rationally had that conversation?

The Kansas basketball team has done nothing wrong. And within a few weeks you can probably count on most of those lunch-time football conversations turning to the status of Brandon Rush’s ACL. But for now, think about this relationship analogy.

Imagine you have a girlfriend or boyfriend. We’ll call this person Pat. Pat is gorgeous, has a great personality, and is always ranked in top 25 in the nation in the AP significant other poll. But Pat also has a history of letting you down at the most critical of times. And in March you feel like you can’t trust Pat at all.

Now a guy or girl you’ve known for a long time is starting to catch your eye. We’ll call this person Kelly. Kelly used to have a lot of flaws. Kelly was extremely unreliable, terrible to travel with, and just annoyingly dull. But something happened to Kelly. Kelly dropped 20 pounds, started saying all the right things, and just became fun to be around.

You can probably figure out who Pat and Kelly are. And wouldn’t you at least be mildly intrigued by Kelly?

The basketball team probably doesn’t have to worry about anybody actually breaking up with it, but it might have to get used to sharing the limelight and the headlines with the football team. Kansas should roll over Baylor this weekend, and if Kansas can squeak past Colorado in Boulder, Colo., on Oct. 20, Kansas would be 7-0 going into a date with Texas A&M in College Station, Texas on Oct. 27.

This could be a historical year in Lawrence. You have to go back to 1995-96 to find the last time Kansas was ranked in the AP Top 10 in football and basketball in the same school year. The Jayhawks peaked at No. 6 in football in the Oct. 28 poll, while the Kansas basketball team spent the entire season in the Top 10, including three weeks at No. 1.

Two years before that in 1992-93, Kansas won the Aloha Bowl in football and went to the Final Four in Basketball.

This year has the potential to be even bigger. Kansas fans should set their sights on San Antonio. It must be fate that the Big 12 championship game and the Final Four are both being played at the AlamoDome. There could be plenty of Rock Chalk on the River Walk in San Antonio in December and March. Is it realistic? Probably not. But is it possible? Yes, and isn’t that something?

— Edited by Elizabeth Cattell

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