How to do a Kansas Football Game Day

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There are plenty of ways to attend a Kansas football game.

For example, you can drive to Lawrence shortly before kickoff, find somewhere to park, walk into Kansas World War I Memorial Stadium, watch approximately three and a half hours of football, walk back to your car and go home.

Technically, you attended.

You did it wrong.

College football is one of the few sporting events where the actual sporting event is only part of the experience. A proper Kansas gameday requires Lawrence. It requires food. It may require beverages. It requires wandering around campus, complaining about parking, seeing somebody you haven’t seen since college and pretending you remember their name, and eventually making your way into Memorial Stadium for some football.

So whether you’re coming to Lawrence for the first time or you’ve been going to games since we were excited about winning three of them in a season, here’s how to do it correctly.

Get to Lawrence Early

This might be the most important rule. Do not plan to arrive 45 minutes before kickoff. Yes, you can probably make it to your seat that way. But again, you’re doing it wrong. Lawrence is part of the Kansas gameday experience, and you should give yourself enough time to enjoy it.

For the September 4 season opener against Long Island, this should be particularly easy. Kickoff isn’t until 7 p.m., which gives you most of the day before you actually have to concern yourself with football.

Granted, September 4 is a Friday, which means Lawrence will also contain students going to class, people going home from work, and the tens of thousands of other football fans who read this article and took my advice.

So, you know, plan accordingly.

Spend Some Time Downtown

Mass Street is the obvious starting point.

I’m not going to make another list of Lawrence restaurants here. We did that last year, and Lawrence has enough good places to eat that naming five of them can only guarantee angry comments asking why I didn’t name the sixth.

Pick somewhere.

Eat something.

Walk around.

Mass Street is one of the things Lawrence does exceptionally well. On football weekends you’ll gradually notice more crimson and blue, more people yelling ROCK CHALK at complete strangers, and more people beginning the same migration toward Mount Oread.

If you’re coming from out of town, this is the part of the day when Lawrence starts to feel less like someplace where a football game happens to be taking place and more like a college town having a football game.

And yes, there is a difference.

You Should Probably Go to The Wheel

Okay sure, I know I just said I wasn’t going to name specific places, but eventually, make your way to 14th and Ohio. The Wagon Wheel — The Wheel — is not a hidden local secret. Everyone knows about it. That doesn’t make it any less necessary.

It’s crowded. It’s not large. There is writing everywhere. There is pizza. There are beverages. There will probably be a line.

Perfect.

The Wheel reportedly goes through about 3,000 slices of pizza on a typical Kansas football gameday, which is an absolutely ridiculous statistic until you’ve been there on a football weekend, at which point your response will probably be, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

The Hawk is basically next door if you would like to continue your cultural investigation. I don’t know that visiting The Wheel will make you understand the University of Kansas any better, but I’m fairly certain skipping it won’t.

Yes, Go See the Basketball Stuff

“But Mike, we’re here for football.”

I know.

Go to Allen Fieldhouse anyway.

If you’ve never been to Lawrence, there simply isn’t a legitimate argument for being that close to Allen Fieldhouse and not going inside if it’s open. Visit the DeBruce Center. See James Naismith’s original rules of basketball. Walk through the Hall of Athletics. Look at the trophies.

Look, outside of about a six-year period from 2003-2009, we’ve spent most of the last 40 years changing the subject to basketball anytime someone mentioned Kansas football. We’re allowed one stop. Now that the football program is no longer a national punchline, we can acknowledge basketball without it becoming a defense mechanism.

Walk the Campus

If the weather cooperates, don’t just drive from one destination to another. Walk. You won’t have much choice anyway on gameday.

Yes, this advice will seem increasingly stupid as you discover that every direction at KU somehow appears to be uphill.

That’s just Mount Oread.

You should see Jayhawk Boulevard. Walk past Strong Hall. Go by the Kansas Union. See the Campanile. Take a few minutes to actually look around instead of treating campus as the inconvenient obstacle between your parking spot and your seat.

And as you head north toward the football stadium, remember what you’re approaching.

Memorial Stadium isn’t merely an old college football stadium that somebody eventually decided needed some luxury suites. It was built as a memorial to University of Kansas students and alumni who served and died in World War I. It remains one of the three World War I memorials on campus. That history is worth remembering regardless of how much money David Booth has.

Embrace the Construction

If you’re attending a game in 2026, Memorial Stadium is going to look different than it did last year, and last year, it looked VERY different than it did two years ago. We are currently in the unusual position of watching Kansas football in a stadium that is being rebuilt while we’re using it.

Phase I gave us the completely rebuilt west and north sides for the 2025 season. Phase II began this last offseason with demolition and reconstruction of the east side. For 2026, the lower portion of the east bowl will be available, but the upper bowl and permanent concourses won’t be finished until before the 2027 season (allegedly). The temporary setup will include concessions and restrooms, and capacity will again be reduced.

There will also be a new south grandstand with student seating and a dedicated area for the Marching Jayhawks.

So if you’re coming September 4 expecting to see the finished product… well… come back later.

But I actually think that’s part of the appeal. For decades, Memorial Stadium changed slowly enough that you could miss five years and immediately recognize everything when you returned. Now you can miss five months and half the bleachers are gone.

The Gateway District isn’t scheduled to be completely finished until 2028, while the stadium’s east side is expected to be finished for 2027, so the 2026 season will be another weird transitional year.

Enjoy it.

After all, someday we’ll have a completely finished stadium and younger fans will have no idea what it was like to sit on aluminum bleachers in a mostly empty horseshoe watching David Beaty call another timeout on fourth down before punting.

Actually… you know what, that’s probably for the best.

Tailgate

This should go without saying. If you know someone with a tailgate, go there. Bring something. (Don’t be that person.) If you don’t have a tailgate connection, you’ll still find plenty happening around the stadium, as Kansas plans to continue its pregame activities along the Hill and 11th Street during Phase II construction.

So walk around. Talk to people. Listen to the band as they march down the hill. Watch the crowd build.

This is also where Kansas having an on-campus stadium matters. You aren’t driving to an enormous parking lot 20 miles from anything interesting, attending a football game, and leaving. The stadium is surrounded by the university, neighborhoods, and decades of Kansas football history. Some of that history was even good!

Bring the Kids

A Kansas football gameday doesn’t have to be an adults-only exercise in tailgating and yelling about play calling. If you’re bringing younger Jayhawks, keep an eye out for KU’s Family Fun Zone. In recent seasons, Kansas has set up a pregame area on or near the practice fields with inflatables, games, face painting, and other activities geared toward kids. KU has not yet officially announced the complete lineup of 2026 gameday activities as of this writing, but the family area has become a regular part of the pregame experience.

So, if you’re trying to convince a young child (or perhaps your spouse) that spending six hours at a football game is a fun way to spend an afternoon, inflatable obstacle courses and face painting probably make a stronger argument than explaining the intricacies of a 4-2-5 defense.

You can get to that later.

Figure Out Parking Before You Get There

This isn’t the fun part, but ignoring it can ruin all the other parts.

Game-day parking around Memorial Stadium is restricted, so don’t assume you’re going to cruise onto campus and stumble into an open space next to the stadium. KU has traditionally offered free gameday shuttles from various points around town (and campus) beginning three hours before kickoff and continuing until an hour after the game.

There are other parking and transportation possibilities depending on the game, but the broader point is this:

Have a plan.

Showing up at 6:20 for a 7 p.m. kickoff and then discovering that your preferred parking strategy is “drive around until something good happens” is not a plan.

Get Into Memorial Stadium Before Kickoff

You spent all day successfully not rushing. Don’t ruin it now.

If you haven’t attended a game since before the renovations, take some time to look around. The west and north portions of the stadium are essentially unrecognizable compared to what stood there before. And yes, portions of the east side in 2026 will have a temporary feel because, well, they are temporary. That’s part of this particular season’s experience.

But get to your seat before kickoff. Watch the Marching Jayhawks. Participate in the pregame stuff. When the team comes out, be there. Soak in the atmosphere.

You can get another beer after kickoff.

Participate

College football is not the theater. You are allowed to make noise. Actually, you’re encouraged to make noise.

Stand up on third down. Wave the wheat. Yell ROCK CHALK. Complain about officiating decisions you had absolutely no angle to see correctly. Have opinions about the play-calling despite possessing absolutely no knowledge of what coverage the defense was in.

Kansas football is (supposed to be) fun now. And it’s way more fun when your ears are ringing for an hour or so after the game. My experiences with that have been few and far between, but it has happened.

Opening Kickoff: The 2026 Version

The season opener against LIU is going to be a little unusual. It’s on Friday, September 4, and kickoff is at 7 p.m. on ESPNU. It will be the first look at the 2026 Jayhawks, the first gameday with the partially rebuilt east side, and the beginning of another season in which Kansas is simultaneously playing football and reconstructing the building around it. In other words, give yourself extra time.

And perhaps most importantly, appreciate where we are. There was a time not so long ago when Kansas football gameday advice probably needed a section titled: Things To Do When It’s 35-6 at Halftime.

These days, people are buying tickets because they actually want to see the game.

What a world.

TL;DR

The best Kansas football gameday really isn’t complicated.

Get to Lawrence early.

Eat something you probably shouldn’t.

Have a beverage (if that’s your thing).

Walk Mass Street.

Visit The Wheel.

Spend some time on campus.

Tailgate with people you know (and probably a few people you don’t).

Let the kids burn off some energy before subjecting them to four quarters of football.

Get inside before kickoff.

Be loud.

Wave the Wheat.

Stay late.

And watch Kansas win.

That last part is technically outside your control, but it does make the rest of the day considerably more fun.

Do all of that? Then congratulations, you did it right.

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