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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/usffan on 2025-07-14 12:07:19+00:00.

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here.

We open this year’s America’s Top 40 with Kansas (high = 30, low = 56), the 9th highest team in the 16 team Big XII. Lance Leipold looks to rebound from last year’s 5-7 campaign that ended the Jayhawks’ 2 year streak of bowl appearances for the first time since Mark Mangino was terrorizing buffets in the greater Lawrence area. By the end of the season, nobody wanted to play Kansas, who knocked off 3 consecutive ranked teams (Kansas State Colorado, Iowa State and BYU, two of those on the road) and fell one game short of the postseason in the finale against Baylor. In a Big XII that is stuffed in the middle of the table (the links to the Mangino era continue!), Kansas will undoubtedly play a role in determining the conerence champions.

Roster outlook

Leipold’s strength in building Wisconsin-Whitewater into a 6 time Division III national champion was definitely not recruiting scholarship players. But Kansas needs some reinforcements, since they rank 76th in the country in returning talent – 54th on offense and 98th on defense. Most of that offensive talent coming back is in the form of QB Jalon Daniels, with RB Devin Neal in the NFL and no staring WRs back in the fold. Therefore, it’s not really awesome that the Jayhawks finished ahead of only UCF in high school recruiting (73rd in the nation) and middle of the pack (39th overall) in the conference in the portal. A couple of key pickups are Iowa RB Leshon Williams and Alabama WR Emmanuel Henderson, Jr. The defense projects 7 new transfer starters, including 4 from SEC schools.

Schedule and outlook

Kansas opens up with their 3 OOC games (Fresno State, Wagner and the Border War at Mizzou) before opening Big XII play. Five of their first 7 conference games (WVU, Cincinnati, @ UCF, Oklahoma State and @ Arizona) figure to see the Jayhawks favored, so a bowl game isn’t exactly a high bar for 2025. It’s the other four games (@ Texas Tech, Kansas State, at Iowa State and Utah) that will really determing how far the Jayhawks can fly this year. This is Casey Kasem, and we’re sending out this long distance dedication of Corey Hart’s “Never Surrender” to the 2025 Kansas Jayhawks.

Edited to fix my boneheaded mistake.