Not In Kansas Anymore: Jayhawks Football Levels Up As Team Gears Up For London In 2026
By Simon Carroll
College Football is coming to London! The Union Jack Classic welcomes the Kansas Jayhawks and the Arizona State Sun Devils to Wembley Stadium in 2026. Simon Carroll headed out to Lawrence to take in first-hand the college gameday experience that will hit these shores on September 19th:
Rock Chalk
Saturday wasn’t the result 40,000 people wanted.
The Kansas Jayhawks football team has, in my football-watching lifetime, endured a prolonged period of suffering. Widely known as a ‘basketball school’, the last time KU was relevant on the gridiron was under the turbulent Mark Mangino era, where BCS Bowl wins and top ten rankings were matched with NCAA rule violations and internal investigations. Since then, eleven seasons and four head coaches came and went, with the team never winning more than three games in any campaign. When Les Miles was fired after a winless season in 2020, the once-proud program was perhaps at its lowest ebb.
All that changed with the hiring of Lance Leipold.
A native of Jefferson, Wisconsin, Leipold held a football pedigree not many could match. His coaching career began at his alma mater Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he had played quarterback. Working his way up the ranks he returned to the Warhawks as head coach in 2007 and promptly won the Division III Championship six times in eight years. He moved on and up to Buffalo, an FBS team synonymous with propping up the MAC and turned the program around, leading them to three bowl games and even had the Bulls nationally ranked in his final year in Upstate New York.
Then Kansas called.
Leipold’s hiring by the Jayhawks coincided with a serious recommitment to football in Lawrence. Kansas quickly turned it around on the gridiron, winning nine games in year three that saw them ranked 23rd in the nation. In an ultra-competitive Big 12, KU were no longer the whipping boys of the conference; instead, they were a tough opponent, winning their first bowl game in fifteen years, knocking off teams like #6 ranked Oklahoma (2023) and registering three wins against ranked opponents in a row (2024).
Kansas Football, under Coach Leipold, was back.
A New Era Of Football
I love this stadium. #RockChalk pic.twitter.com/LiDCKq7Zf9
— Simon Carroll (@NFLDraftSi) October 24, 2025
The job that Leipold and his team have done at Kansas is undoubtedly impressive. But a coaching staff’s level of success is limited by the resources they are afforded. In that vein, Director of Athletics Travis Goff has not been found wanting. One of the Kansas AD’s first jobs when hired in 2021 was to find himself a head coach, and he and Leipold have been tied at the hip in Lawrence ever since. Goff has overseen significant investment in the program, including the complete rebuild of David Booth Memorial Stadium that began in 2023.
The renovation, currently half-complete, is impressive. Gone are the usual bleachers on two sides of the field, with modern day seating and stands that seem to climb into the clouds. Behind one endzone there’s a jumbotron so big you have to stand in Topeka to see all of it. And inside there’s state of the art facilities for the players, who can get their hair cut and enjoy a game of ping pong in between working out in a ludicrous weight room or studying opponents in a virtual reality suite. The decadence, the attention to detail, and the lengths the program has gone to may seem crazy to some, but in a sport where the fine margins determine wins and losses and recruiting is a 365 day-a-year battle, everything matters.
Married to all of this is the provisions and gameday experience offered to the fans. Executive suites and complementary bars and restaurants adorn the new structure, allowing Kansas Athletics a long-term opportunity for a return on their investment. ‘The Booth’ has some way to go before it is complete and matches their basketball arena, Allen Fieldhouse, as a state-of-the-art sporting venue, but it’s getting there. College football is big business, and in the modern era of NIL deals and cash flooding into the sport you simply have to keep up with the Joneses to compete.
If you’re standing still, you’re going backwards. And the Jayhawks are positioning themselves for future success.
College Football Comes To London
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have heard that college football is coming to London in 2026. The Kansas Jayhawks will host the Arizona State Sun Devils in the ‘Union Jack Classic’ at Wembley Stadium for an epic Big 12 showdown, bringing all the passion, pageantry and history of collegiate sports across the pond. It’s an unprecedented move; sure, we’ve been blessed over here to have a Week 0 Dublin game for some time now. And a trip to the Emerald Isle has its charm, something this writer will continue to indulge in each year. But can any game really compete with the spectacle of 90,000 fans – both international and domestic – under one roof? It’s an ambitious project coordinated by an extremely motivated and talented UJC team, whose vision to give British and European fans a taste of Americana is relentless.
The choice of conference that will send two programs to play on the hallowed Wembley turf was not an accident. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark has been wildly aggressive in fortifying the robustness of his league in turbulent waters. He expedited a TV deal that saw the Big 12 leapfrog the Pac-12 with ESPN that consigned the other conference to the scrapheap – a fate that could well have befallen his conference if he had not read the room so quickly. Yormark survived the departure of Texas and Oklahoma before embarking on an expansion that saw his affiliation jump to sixteen members and spread four timezones, eschewing traditional geographic boundaries. And now, the commissioner looks to international markets to create a truly global footprint.
When the Union Jack Classic came knocking, Yormark didn’t hesitate to answer. And he knew exactly which team to call to sell a trip to Wembley to.
Lance Leipold has long been an advocate of playing a game outside the United States. And with the full backing of his AD Travis Goff, a willing dance partner in Arizona State, and the ability to adjust the schedule to make it work, the game was set; On September 19th 2026, KU will host the Sun Devils at the home of English football – the latest step in a new era for the Kansas Jayhawks.
More Than A Football Game
Unlike most people who venture to the States, I did not choose my first trip to America – it chose me. Invited over to Kansas as part of a UK media delegation to celebrate the birth of the Union Jack Classic, I was able to see first hand the strides this university has made within its football program. But for those who don’t follow this code of football the same as they do the NFL, college ‘ball is a lot more than just the game itself.
Pep rallies. Tailgating. Marching bands. Traditions. Fight songs. Family. Recruiting. More barbecue food than a British person can handle. And packed out bars that sit raucously between student housing in a college town completely absorbed by the occasion; even for someone who has followed the sport for 20 years and written about it for the past decade, the enormity of the spectacle still floored me. It is this frenzy of American culture that the Union Jack Classic will be bringing to London next year. The game itself sometimes feels just like the excuse needed for one hell of a party, all the while knowing that the product on the field dictates the good times off it. To truly understand college football you have to sample it first hand – and for those of us on this side of the pond, we now can.
Saturday was no ordinary football game. It was the Sunflower Showdown, an in-state rivalry matchup between Kansas & Kansas State. These two teams have played each other yearly since 1902, and while KU shades the series, the Wildcats were on a 16-year winning streak heading into this contest. Hopes were high that this would be the season, with K-State starting out slow and Leipold transforming the Jayhawks. Super Bowl winners Aqib Talib & Chris Harris returned to their alma mater for the occasion. The stands were packed, the excitement palpable. But Avery Johnson and Jayce Brown had other ideas, spoiling the party with a ruthless offensive performance that saw the visitors romp to a 42-17 victory. The one sour note of a whirlwind injection of authentic college football could not dampen spirits, with the festivities lasting long into the night.
Saturday wasn’t the result 40,000 people wanted. But Kansas football is back, and a slice of it is heading our way. ROCK CHALK.
Union Jack Classic Tickets On Sale Now!
College Football heads to London in 2026! Make sure you get to tsee the Arizona State Sun Devils take on the Kansas Jayhawks at Wembley Stadium. Book your tickets here:
SIMON CARROLL
LEAD WRITER, HEAD OF CONTENT
PREVIOUSLY THE FOUNDER OF NFL DRAFT UK, SIMON HAS BEEN COVERING COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND THE NFL DRAFT SINCE 2009. BASED IN MANCHESTER, SIMON IS ALSO CO-CREATOR & WEEKLY GUEST OF THE COLLAPSING POCKET PODCAST, AND COVERS THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS FOR SB NATION.