Way-Too-Early Predictions: Games 9-12 - 83 Days Until Kansas Football

With almost 3 months to go before the start of the season, we finish our early predictions for the 2023 season.

© Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports

This week on the countdown we have looked at some super early predictions for this season for the Kansas Jayhawks. Monday was the first four games on the schedule, and Wednesday was the middle four games. And while I've gotten some pushback that this is unrealistically rosy, the expectations for this season are much higher than they were last year. To hit that mark, the early slate is going to be very important.

A reminder that there are still almost three months to go before the season opener against the Missouri State Bears, which means that there is plenty of time for things to change. But that also means it's the perfect time to make predictions that are likely missing critical information or will be wildly inaccurate long before we actually get to the game.

Contents

1. at Iowa State (43)
2. vs Texas Tech (22)
3. vs Kansas State (27)
4. at Cincinnati (48)
5. Overall

But of course that's the majority of the fun.

For these predictions, we will be looking at ESPN's FPI Rankings. For reference, the Kansas Jayhawks rank 68th coming into this season, down from their season ending ranking of 58th in 2022.

at Iowa State (43)

I keep hearing that the issue with Iowa State last season was the offensive coordinator, but that doesn't explain how Hunter Dekkers got rattled so often last season. And the offense didn't really seem to get a shot in the arm from the transfer portal or from new additions. Add in that Biletnikoff Award Finalist and First Team All-American wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson is gone, and it's hard to see how the offense takes a huge step forward this year.

That said, the defense continues to be phenomenal, and it is hard to imagine that Kansas is going to be as productive as usual against this team, especially up in Ames. But the Kansas offense will have had multiple shots at supposed good defenses to get used to them, and the Kansas defense will have taken a huge step forward. It won't be easy, but I see Kansas walking out of Ames with a win for the first time since 2008. 

Prediction: Kansas 31, Iowa State 27

vs Texas Tech (22)

Texas Tech is probably one of the hardest teams to peg in these predictions. They ended season on a pretty impressive four-game winning streak, including a win where they pulled away in the fourth quarter in Lubbock. And the main weakness of the offensive line is getting a boost this season through the transfer portal. The problem is that Texas Tech is EXTREMELY aggressive, which tends to lean into high variability. So the Red Raiders could be very good if everything goes right, and very bad if things go wrong.

While the defense should get a bit of a boost just from the extra year of experience, they were also highly dependent on the pass rush getting home. And the defensive secondary struggled last year. Consider that Kansas was without Jalon Daniels and Daniel Hishaw in the game in Lubbock last year, and it isn't hard to see some marked improvement. Add in the home environment, and this is as close to a coin flip as you can get.

Prediction: Texas Tech 35, Kansas 34

vs Kansas State (27)

I'm going to conveniently ignore talking about specifics of last year's game, both because of the weather conditions and also the pretty fluky start to the game for the Jayhawks.

But it's impossible to ignore the steps forward that quarterback Will Howard took last season. He added a dynamic that the team just didn't have under Adrian Martinez. The big question mark is how the running game adapts to the loss of Deuce Vaughn. There are multiple options waiting in the wings, but it's easy to take smaller sample sizes and be too optimistic when projecting them out to more playing time.

And the wide receiver room is a bit light, with Phillip Brooks the only reliable returning option. It's impossible to assume they won't get any better, but there is a limit to the excitement that bringing in any part of that abysmal Iowa offense from last season can bring. 

There are enough moving pieces for the defense that I could see a big step back, but it's also not crazy to think that they can replace those pieces without missing a beat.

But this will be Senior Day for a lot of really important Jayhawks, and a program that has seen a resurgence of fan support should be able to keep the Wildcat fans from turning this into a quasi-home game. I expect a good sendoff in the type of very exciting Sunflower Showdown that both fanbases deserve.

Prediction: Kansas 31, Kansas State 28

at Cincinnati (48)

I'm having a really hard time seeing Cincinnati having a "successful" season this year, at least when you think about the fact they were in the College Football Playoff just two years ago. They have a brand new coach in Scott Satterfield, only seven returning starters, and are moving into a new conference while picking up a fairly difficult schedule, even though they miss a lot of the teams projected to be at the top of the conference standings.

But TCU's run from last year taught us that anything is possible in the Big 12, and so I wouldn't completely count them out. The defense should be good, and at this point in the season they should have had enough time to adjust to the step up in competition. But the offensive line is a huge question mark, and the offense is a piecemeal unit this season as Satterfield tries to mold this team into what he will want to see in the future.

Kansas should be wrapping up a very successful season, could potentially still be on the edge of the Big 12 race (depending on just how muddy it gets) and could be pushing to get Jalon Daniels some legitimate Heisman Trophy consideration. Any one of those things should be enough to keep the team motivated for a big road win to end the regular season.

Prediction: Kansas 45, Cincinnati 30

Overall

Looking through all the predictions, this means that I have Kansas finishing 9-3 on the year, with a 6-3 Big 12 record. That seems REALLY optimistic to me, but I also think it is hard not to err on the side of an electric offense when there is some uncertainty. And it is hard to argue that the Jayhawks have benefitted this year from a home/away game standpoint, if not from the scheduling of three of the four new teams.

But of course, there is plenty of time for things that I assumed in these predictions to change. Last season, I predicted a bowl game for the Jayhawks, but they got there in a completely different way than I thought they would. And if all of this goes the way I lay it out above, expect an appearance in the Cotton Bowl or Alamo Bowl to end the year.

Join the discussion! Come talk about this or any of our articles on the Blue Wing Rising Discord Server.

Follow Blue Wings Rising on Twitter.

Listen to the official podcast of Blue Wings Rising: The Rock Chalk Podcast.