KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas needs to win Saturday at Baylor to gain bowl eligibility.
It’s a tougher task than you might think for the Jayhawks (5-6), who have only won four of 22 previous meetings against the Bears (7-4).
Baylor owns a 13-game win streak in the series dating back to 2010 and has trounced Kansas by an average score of 47-12 during that span.
The Jayhawks haven’t beaten the Bears since 2007, when Todd Reesing threw two touchdowns and four players scored on the ground led by Jake Sharp in a 58-10 victory.
If Kansas can reverse that sad-sack history at 11 a.m. on Saturday in Waco, Texas, a game that airs on ESPN, the program would reach a bowl game in three consecutive seasons for the first time in its 124-year history.
Before the last two seasons, the only other time KU reached bowls in back-to-back seasons was 2007-08.
Not every prognosticator projects the Jayhawks to make a bowl game, but the most common bowl destination among those who did was the Birmingham Bowl against an SEC team — Vanderbilt or Oklahoma, in this case.
KANSAS BOWL PROJECTIONS*
- CBS Sports: Frisco Bowl vs. Oklahoma (Dec. 17)
- ESPN Bonagura: Independence Bowl vs. Louisiana (Dec. 28)
- ESPN Schlabach: First Responder Bowl vs. Memphis (Jan. 3)
- The Sporting News: Birmingham Bowl vs. Vanderbilt (Dec. 27)
- Sports Illustrated: Armed Forces Bowl vs. Connecticut (Dec. 27)
- USA Today: n/a
- Action: Birmingham Bowl vs. Oklahoma (Dec. 27)
- Athlon Sports: n/a
- College Football Network: n/a
* Kansas must win at Baylor on Saturday to become bowl-eligible
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