MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — When West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez looked further into the Mountaineers’ opponent this week, he could hardly believe Kansas had lost six of its nine games.
Following consecutive one-possession losses, including a one-point setback to Central Florida last week, the Jayhawks (3-6, 1-5) need to run the table to get bowl eligible starting with Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. contest at Milan Puskar Stadium.
“Their record should be flipped without question,” Rodriguez said. “Close, last play of the game kind of stuff. I noticed them. I don’t know who they had played, but I watched them on film and remember telling myself they’re really athletic. I was watching more defense than offense. Their defense has athletes everywhere. At all three levels, they have some really good players. They’ve been in a whole bunch of close games, kind of like us, but I have a lot of respect for what their staff has put together. They crushed us last year.”
KU surrendered a touchdown with 1 second remaining last week in a 33-32 loss to the Knights. One week prior, the Jayhawks squandered a 13-0 halftime lead and allowed a touchdown with just outside 1 minute remaining in a 22-16 loss to TCU.
The Jayhawks do have a close win on their resume having blocked a field goal to prevail 25-24 against Baylor, but at 1-3 in one-possession games and with all six losses by no more than 17 points, what could have been has been a theme at KU in 2026.
Kansas was fortunate that it wasn’t one of the many college football programs to have travel impacted Friday by a 4-plus hour nationwide ground stop implemented by the FAA that has significantly impacted Saturday’s schedule.
While the Jayhawks arrived on time, their game against the Mountaineers was moved up 2 hours and will air on ESPN2 as the Big 12 Conference pushed back the start of Arizona State at UCF by 2 hours to kickoff at 5:30 p.m. with the Sun Devils unable to travel Friday.
Regardless of what time it’s played, KU knows a run defense that’s been below average within the conference will face a major test today while opposing one of the most productive ground games in college football.
The Mountaineers (5-4, 2-4) have the third and fifth-leading rushers in the Big 12 in tailback Cam Cook and quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr., while the latter has 19 rushing touchdowns to lead the country as well as the league by nine in that category.
With 924 yards on 182 carries, Hawkins has a plenty realistic opportunity to surpass 1,000 yards in his team’s 10th game. Cook, who is tied for the FBS lead with 209 rushing attempts, reached the four-digit mark for the season in last Saturday’s 53-48 loss at Texas Tech and has 1,072 yards with eight TDs on the year.
“Coach Rodriguez has his system going now,” KU coach Lance Leipold said. “A year ago, you could see he was kind of starting to put it together. He has the weapons now to implement what he wants to do and they’re dangerous. They got in a shootout at Tech last week and it’s going to be challenging. They don’t turn the ball over. They haven’t beaten themselves that way. They have speed and explosiveness in the backfield. Cook is an excellent player. They have the weapons on the outside when they are throwing the ball. It’s a difficult offense to stop.
“It’s going to be a big challenge for our defense, but I know our guys will be excited for that and we have to find a way to control the ball and put points on the board in a game like this. No doubt about it.”
Hawkins is hardly completing 11 passes per game, but has made many of them count in a major way as he leads FBS with 10.9 yards per attempt. The Oklahoma transfer has completed 101-of-175 passes for 1,901 yards with 12 touchdowns and two interceptions.
Production from different wide receivers in different games has been a theme for much of the season, and last week it was TaRon Francis who had a coming out party against the Red Raiders with three receptions for 169 yards and a touchdown after going the first eight games with one touch — a 3-yard carry in Week 2 against Tennessee Martin.
The KU pass defense has been stout and ranks second in the Big 12 allowing an average of 186 yards.
Defensive end Leroy Harris III is disruptive and responsible for 6.5 of the team’s 17 sacks, while linebacker Trey Lathan, a former Mountaineer, leads the team with 62 tackles and two interceptions
While KU allows a respectable average of 24.8 points, the Mountaineers rank 132 out of 138 FBS teams in that category and last in the league at 34.6 points.
“We haven’t really played well defensively for the whole game in any game,” Rodriguez said. “Offensively, I don’t know if we’ve played all four quarters, but we’ve played some really good football.”
A 41-point first half from the Red Raiders didn’t help matters, and while the third quarter of that contest was WVU’s best 15-minute stretch of defense this season, the unit continues to be plagued by explosive plays and presents an opportunity for a KU offense that’s sputtered for long stretches against power conference competition to get right.
“Kind of went toe-to-toe with one of the better teams in the league at their place in a tough environment and had opportunities to win the game, but we didn’t finish it, so we have to learn what we can do to get better from it,” Rodriguez said. “Some of the issues we’re having, whether it’s defense or whatever, it’s my job as the head coach to first identify it and then try to get it fixed. Some of it we’re trying to get fixed now of course, but some of it may take a little more time.”
The Jayhawks average 29.4 points, but that figure includes the 106 they combined for in victories against Long Island and Middle Tennessee, and it drops to 22.7 excluding those two games.
Quarterback Isaiah Marshall returned last week from a lower leg injury that caused him to miss the matchup with TCU and had a solid showing against the Knights. He completed 21-of-32 passes for 210 yards and rushed 13 times for 125 yards and two touchdowns.
Accuracy hasn’t been a strength of Marshall’s this season as he’s hit on 55.2 percent of his throws, having completed 126-of-228 attempts for 1,716 yards with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
Tailback Dylan Edwards its the team’s top rusher with 595 yards and five TDs, while Marshall isn’t far behind at 528 yards.
Wideouts Nik McMillian and Nahzae Cox are focal points of the passing attack and McMillan leads the team in receptions (31), receiving yards (497) and receiving touchdowns (5), while Cox averages 27.9 yards on 16 receptions.
“I have to do a better job of trying to do whatever I can to help our defensive coaches out and our defensive coaches have to do a better job of helping our players out,” Rodriguez said. “Overall, I’ve never been through something like this where it’s been that consistently troublesome throughout the entire season. But I’m not sticking my head in the sand. I know most of the issues. I’m not going to say them publicly, even though I know you all might want to know what it is, but I have a pretty good grasp of what we need to do.”