Todd Reesing and Chris Harris were on the field the last time Kansas football won a road game. The Final Destination was the No. 1 movie in America, Barack Obama was six months into his first term as President and the Big 12 actually had 12 members.
When the Jayhawks take the field against Ohio — their first road game of 2017 — on Sept. 16, it will mark 2,926 days since their last road victory.
Kansas beat UTEP in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 12, 2009. Ironically, current Jayhawks' head coach David Beaty was on the sidelines as Mark Mangino's receivers coach. They have lost 41 road games in a row since then.
“It’s in your face every now and then because of Twitter and things like that when we’re recruiting,” Beaty said in September 2015 before playing Rutgers, his first road game as head coach and their 31st-straight road loss. “That’s one of those things that I don’t think our kids really think a whole lot about that, either. We don’t allow them to. That has nothing to do with them, it really doesn’t.”
Beaty and his players never voluntarily talk about the streak and are rarely even asked about it. Though he's right that the streak has nothing to do with current players because none of them have been around for half the streak, let alone the whole thing, it's also a gigantic hurdle that current players must clear before the program is taken seriously again.
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The closest call came in 2012 when Kansas lost to Texas Tech in double overtime, 41-34. They've come within 10 points just six times, most recently against TCU in 2015 (23-17). Two of the six close calls were in 2009, including a four-point loss at Colorado.
Equally as stunning is their Big 12 road losing streak: 36 games. They haven't won a conference game since Oct. 4, 2008, when they beat Iowa State.
So while a Week 3 Kansas-Ohio game will sit far off the radar of fans more interested in Oklahoma State–Pittsburgh, Clemson–Louisville or one of many other delectable matchups, it's a huge game for David Beaty and a program famished for relevance.
