The 2008 Kansas Jayhawks football team (variously "Kansas", "KU", the "Jayhawks", or the "Fighting Manginos") represented the University of Kansas for the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision intercollegiate football season of 2008-2009. It was the school's 119th year of intercollegiate football. The team was looking to continue the success of the prior season in which they lost only a single conference game and went on to win the Orange Bowl. In the ninth week, after defeating Kansas State 52-21, the Jayhawks became Bowl eligible for the fourth consecutive year, a school record. Also, for the first time in school history, Kansas made back-to-back appearances in a Bowl game after accepting the invitation to play in the Insight Bowl versus the Minnesota Golden Gophers. The team finished the regular season with a victory over their archrival, the Missouri Tigers (who was then ranked 13th in the BCS Poll), in the Border War. The Jayhawks concluded the season with a 8–5 overall record (4–4 in the Big 12 Conference).
The team was led by head coach Mark Mangino, in his seventh season, with Ed Warinner as the offensive coordinator for his second season (4th year overall) and Clint Bowen (8th year) in his first season as the defensive coordinator, having served the previous two seasons as co-defensive coordinator. Junior Todd Reesing returned to the starting quarterback position after a records-setting performance in the previous season.
They played their home games on Kivisto Field at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas.
Read more about 2008 Kansas Jayhawks Football Team: Schedule, Roster, Coaching Staff, Rankings
Famous quotes containing the words kansas, football and/or team:
“Since the Civil War its six states have produced fewer political ideas, as political ideas run in the Republic, than any average county in Kansas or Nebraska.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)