Hawking Points: Kansas Secures Eighth Win With Dominate Performance at Cincinnati

Jason Bean returned and went off as the Jayhawks beat Cincinnati to end the regular season.

Jason Bean returned for the Kansas Jayhawks’ final regular season game of the year and put on an absolute show in an emphatic 49-16 win over the Cincinnati Bearcats to give KU its first eight-win season since 2008.

Key Plays

Cincinnati got the ball first and got a couple of early first downs on the ground. Kenny Logan and Rich Miller stopped the run on third and two from the KU 41 and Cinci went for it on fourth and one and narrowly made it. On the next play, Mello Dotson nearly had a pick-six on a great jump on the ball but couldn’t bring it in. But the defense held the Bearcats to a 48-yard field goal attempt, which Carter Brown hit to go up 3-0.

After forcing a Bearcats’ punt, but starting back at their own 10, Bean finds Lawrence Arnold to immediately get 25 yards back. On the next play, Torry Locklin took the option run 19 yards past midfield. But we need to talk about the play calling on third down. A wildcat option on third and five forced another KU punt. The only benefit is KU pinned Cinci inside the five, except a holding on KU gave them 10 extra yards.

Cobee Bryant struck again early in the second quarter. Brian Lichtenberg came into the game and took a deep shot, which Bryant grabbed with one hand and ripped out of the receivers’ hands. On the next play, Bean found Grimm for 40 yards on a beautiful ball. After Bean lit up the air, KU punched it in on the ground. Bean scrambled into the red zone and Neal finished the drive off with a 13-yard touchdown run.

The defense made another stop and the Bean kept finding Skinner before Neal broke another big run, shaking tackles and getting near the red zone. Another Neal run and Bean found Jared Casey, who made an incredible defended catch for a touchdown.

With 26 seconds left in the half and all its timeouts, Casey took the squib kick to the 30 and then Bean found Arnold for a 30-yard pass to the Cinci 26 with 10 seconds left. On the next play, Bean found Mason Fairchild for a 26-yard touchdown. Kansas went 56 yards in two plays and 17 seconds to take a 21-10 lead into the break.

Kansas picked up right where it left off in the first half with an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. Bean found Arnold for 19, Cincinnati was called for pass interference, Bean found Grimm for nine, and then Neal made the defense look silly again with a 30-yard touchdown run to give KU a 28-10 lead.

After a Cincinnati touchdown at the start of the fourth quarter, Bean decided he was done playing around and took the read option himself 43 yards for a touchdown. The drive took just three plays to go 79 yards. On the next drive, he did it again, this time going 50 yards to the house to put Kansas up 42-16.

Even with the backups in, the offense continued to bulldoze Cincinnati. Ben Easters came in at quarterback and even after one Dylan McDuffie touchdown run was taken back because of holding, he still punched it in on fourth and three with less than a minute remaining.

Eye-Catching Stat Lines

Bean was perfect in the first half, putting up an eye-popping 10-10 for 190 yards and two touchdowns. He finished 13-17 for 250 yards and two touchdowns, but the second half was where his legs went to work. Bean finished with 90 rushing yards on four carries and two touchdowns.

Neal was left off the Doak Walker Award semifinalist list as one of the best 10 running backs in the country and he responded with 106 yards on 10 carries and two touchdowns. It was a massive day for Neal capping off an incredible regular season. This was after his 30-yard TD run early in the second half.

With that big run, Devin Neal now has 1,203 rushing yards this season and now has the 4th most rushing yards in a single season in #KUfball history. He also has 15 TDs. If he gets one more, he'll tie Brandon McAnderson for 2nd most in a single season at 16.

— Nathan Swaffar (@NathanSwaffar) November 26, 2023

Anything Kansas did on offense worked tonight, as Brian Hanni pointed out in the fourth quarter.

Half-way through the 4th quarter, Kansas has more points than plays run (42 points on 40 plays) and averaging an astounding 12.3 yards per play. #kufball

— Brian Hanni (@BHanni) November 26, 2023

Even when the backups came in, KU ran all over the Bearcats.

Three Kansas receivers finished with more than 50 yards, led by Arnold with 74 yards and Skinner with 72. Grimm also had 56 yards on three catches.

Kansas was not great at stopping the run. The Bearcats had 151 rushing yards at the half, compared to just 41 passing yards, and ended with 230 yards rushing, led by Corey Kiner’s 106 yards. The KU defense held Cincinnati to 109 passing yards.

Eye-Covering Moments

After two Neal runs, Bean’s first pass was a big third-and-two conversion to Luke Grimm. Then he found Quentin Skinner wide open to midfield, though Skinner came up limping. On third and one, it looked like Cinci jumped early, but no flag and KU had to punt.

With all the momentum on KU’s side, the defense let Cincinnati go 75 yards in 13 plays for a touchdown with just 26 seconds left in the first half and Kansas up just 14-10.

The KU defense didn’t exactly swallow the Bearcats up, allowing Cinci to drive down the field multiple times after Jayhawk scores, but after 13 plays and 50 yards on the first possession of the second half, Kansas did force a 42-yard field goal attempt, which was wide right.

Another double-digit drive by Cincinnati ended in some trickery with a lateral and then a touchdown pass by Ryan Montgomery. The Bearcats went for two and the ruling of Emery Jones' conversion led to a Lance Leipold unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, but then the officials reviewed and ruled that Jones lost control of the ball before it hit the pylon, keeping Kansas’ lead at 28-16.

Takeaways

Kansas was the better team coming into the game and looked dominant. This is what you would expect from an eight-win team. Any time Cincinnati threatened in the first three quarters, Kansas answered emphatically. It was exactly the type of performance you would want to send ending the season and heading into a bowl game.