Arizona State Preview
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The KU and ASU campuses are roughly 1,000 miles apart. So naturally, Kansas will travel more than 4,500 miles this week to play a home game in London.
Cool. (Not.)
College football remains the most efficient sport in America.
Regardless, it won’t matter where this game is played if the Jayhawks can’t block anybody.
After an encouraging season opener against LIU, Kansas got a much more useful measuring stick last week against #23 Missouri. The results were not particularly encouraging. The Jayhawks were outgained 469-255, rushed for 81 yards, went 3-of-15 on third down, allowed four sacks, and lost 38-21.
So naturally, the reward is a flight across the Atlantic to face an Arizona State defense that has been very good through two games.
Both teams enter the inaugural Union Jack Classic at Wembley Stadium with 1-1 records and losses to SEC opponents. Those similarities end pretty quickly.
Arizona State lost 48-20 at #10 Texas A&M last weekend, which certainly looks worse than Kansas’ 17-point loss to Missouri. But ASU outgained the Aggies 369-255 while holding A&M to 14 first downs. Four Arizona State turnovers led to 24 Texas A&M points.
Kansas, meanwhile, was pretty thoroughly outplayed.
That’s what makes Saturday interesting. Was Missouri simply a bad matchup and a bad night for a young Kansas offense? Or did it expose problems that are going to follow the Jayhawks into Big 12 play?
We should have a better idea how to answer those questions by Saturday evening.
PREGAME
This will be the second meeting between Kansas and Arizona State.
The first came in 2024, when the Jayhawks went to Tempe and lost 35-31 after Jordyn Tyson caught the winning touchdown with 16 seconds remaining.
You may remember 2024 as the season in which Kansas discovered roughly 37 different ways to lose close football games. (Don’t check the math on that.) Anyway, good times, right?
Saturday’s game is the inaugural Union Jack Classic and the first college football game played at Wembley Stadium. FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff will broadcast from London beginning at 9 a.m. CT, with kickoff scheduled for 11 a.m. CT on FS1.
Both teams are 1-1. This is also the Big 12 opener for both schools.
FIRST DOWN
Can KU protect Isaiah Marshall?
Against Missouri, Isaiah Marshall completed 13-of-30 passes for 168 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. He was also sacked four times.
Some of that was Marshall. Some of it was Missouri’s secondary. A lot of it was Kansas simply losing too many battles up front.
That is a problem because Arizona State has generated quarterback pressure on 38.3% of its defensive snaps this season despite blitzing just 13 times. The Sun Devils are allowing 4.06 yards per play, and opponents are averaging only 221.5 yards of total offense.
That is about the worst possible defensive profile for an offense that just struggled to protect a young quarterback.
If Arizona State can get pressure with four, it can leave seven defenders in coverage and make Marshall find small windows while the pocket collapses around him. That seems suboptimal.
Kansas does not need Marshall to throw for 350 yards Saturday. It needs to keep him out of obvious passing situations, give him time when he does throw, and avoid the kind of catastrophic mistakes that turned a 14-14 game against Missouri into a 28-14 deficit in barely three minutes.
Which brings us to…
SECOND DOWN
Run the dang ball.
Kansas rushed 36 times for 81 yards against Missouri. That’s 2.2 yards per carry.
And yes, sacks count against college rushing totals, so the number makes the actual running backs look slightly worse than they were. Dylan Edwards carried six times for 39 yards. Yasin Willis had eight carries for 18. That still isn’t good enough.
Through two games, Willis and Edwards have combined for 161 rushing yards on 31 carries. Kansas has enough talent in the backfield that the running game should be helping a first-year starting quarterback, not asking him to rescue the offense on third-and-long.
Arizona State isn’t going to make this easy, either. The Sun Devils held Texas A&M to 255 total yards last week and have allowed 443 yards through two games. Kansas has to establish enough of a running game to keep Arizona State honest.
I’m not even asking for 250 yards here.
Maybe just don’t make 2nd-and-9 the base offense.
THIRD DOWN
We’ll find out real quick whether the defensive adjustments KU talked about this week will work. Otherwise, Reed Harris might end up in Kansas lore alongside Adarius Bowman.
First, let’s discuss Arizona State quarterback Cutter Boley, who transferred from Kentucky and has been excellent through two games. Boley has completed 42-of-61 passes for 641 yards, eight touchdowns, and two interceptions. His 320.5 passing yards per game rank ninth nationally, and his 10.5 yards per attempt rank ninth among quarterbacks with at least 50 dropbacks. He also leads the Big 12 with 12 completions of at least 20 yards.
That’s mildly concerning after what Missouri just did.
Austin Simmons threw for 292 yards against Kansas without being sacked or intercepted. Donovan Olugbode had six catches for 121 yards, while Cayden Lee added six catches for 120. Missouri averaged 9.7 yards per pass attempt.
And now Kansas gets Reed Harris. Or maybe more accurately, Reed Harris gets KU.
Harris has 15 catches for 326 yards and four touchdowns in two games. Eight of those catches have gained at least 20 yards, the most in the country, and he’s averaging 21.7 yards per reception. At Texas A&M last week, he caught nine passes for 189 yards and two touchdowns.
Kansas doesn’t necessarily have to shut down Arizona State’s passing game. But if Boley is consistently getting clean pockets and Harris is running free through the secondary, this could get uncomfortable quickly. Kansas spent the Missouri game giving receivers too much room. KU defensive coordinator DK McDonald says that is going to change. McDonald and safety Corey Gordon both talked this week about KU’s defensive backs playing more aggressively and challenging receivers closer to the line of scrimmage. That may help prevent the easy completions Missouri feasted on, but there is an obvious tradeoff when the guy lining up across from you is averaging 21+ yards per catch.
Against Arizona State, we may quickly find out whether the cure is better than the disease.
FOURTH DOWN
The Sun Devils did plenty of things well against Texas A&M. They gained 369 yards. They held the Aggies to 255. They allowed only 14 first downs. So where is Arizona State vulnerable?
Well, they turned the ball over four times. Those turnovers produced 24 Texas A&M points and turned a competitive football game into a 48-20 final.
Boley has thrown only two interceptions this season, both against A&M, but he threw 18 during his Kentucky career, including 12 in 10 games as a starter last year. Arizona State’s game notes point out that 16 of those INTs came while his team was trailing and that most came late in halves or in long-yardage situations. That’s useful context, but it also tells you something pretty obvious: Put Boley in situations where he feels like he has to make a play.
Kansas wasn’t able to do that against Simmons. The Jayhawks didn’t sack him once and didn’t intercept a pass.
Leroy Harris has been disruptive up front, with four tackles for loss, a sack, a forced fumble, two pass breakups, and a blocked field goal through two games. Kansas needs more of that from everybody.
Pressure Boley. Get him behind the chains. Make him throw into coverage.
And when he puts the ball in danger, catch it.
PREDICTION
This is a strange game to evaluate because Arizona State just lost by 28 points, and I came away from the weekend much more concerned about Kansas.
The Sun Devils’ loss was largely self-inflicted. They moved the football, played excellent defense for most of the day, and then gave Texas A&M 24 points off turnovers.
Kansas’ problems against Missouri were more structural. The Jayhawks couldn’t run the ball consistently, couldn’t protect Marshall consistently, couldn’t get off the field consistently, and couldn’t pressure Simmons at all. Those are harder things to fix in eight days than “stop throwing the ball to the other team.”
That doesn’t mean Kansas can’t win.
Arizona State is breaking in plenty of new pieces of its own, Boley can be pressured into mistakes, and there is enough speed on the Kansas offense to make this defense work if the offensive line gives Marshall a chance. But Saturday feels like an important test of whether the Missouri game was an early-season stumble or a warning.
Kansas needs to prove it can protect its quarterback, run the football, and prevent explosive passes. Do those things, and the Jayhawks have a very real chance to come home from London 2-1. Don’t, and they’re going to have a very long flight home.
Personally, I’ve moved back to the “I’ll believe it when I see it” camp. Sure, a 9-4 season will get a coach a lot of grace in Lawrence. But after back-to-back 5-7 campaigns that have seen the Jayhawks blow 4th-quarter leads in nine (!!!) of those 14 losses — yeah, you’ve got to prove it again.
Arizona State 31, Kansas 24
EXTRA POINT
The Kansas defense intercepted just four passes all season last year, and two came in the season opener. KU therefore has just two interceptions over its last 13 games, and a Jayhawk cornerback has not recorded one since Mello Dotson picked off BYU’s Jake Retzlaff in November 2024.
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