Baylor (4-2, 2-1 Big 12) at Kansas (2-4, 0-3 Big 12). Saturday, Oct. 24, noon CT / 1 p.m. ET, David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, Lawrence, Kan., TNT.
Your hosts are Fitz Calloway, a hoops-first Lawrence native who converts every football stat into basketball points, and Maggie Whitlock, a Waco interior designer who renovates roster weaknesses live on air.
Fitz: Maggie, welcome to Lawrence. Fair warning: Sunday it's the Blue Blood Classic, so this whole town is one day from full hoops mode.
Maggie: Sugar, I brought my tape measure. Your run defense needs new drywall.
Players to watch
Kansas quarterback Isaiah Marshall has 1,294 passing yards, nine touchdowns and five interceptions. Wide receiver Nik McMillan leads with 400 receiving yards and four touchdowns. Running back Dylan Edwards has 375 rushing yards and four scores. Trey Lathan leads with 41 tackles, and Leroy Harris III leads with three sacks.
Baylor quarterback DJ Lagway has 1,116 yards, eight touchdowns and three interceptions. Wide receiver Gavin Freeman has 49 catches for 555 yards. Running back Dawson Pendergrass leads with 327 rushing yards. Travion Barnes leads with 36 tackles, and Daniel Cobbs has three sacks.
Maggie: Freeman is a load-bearing wall. You don't knock that out.
What happened last week
Both teams lost Oct. 17. TCU beat Baylor 17-6 in Waco and ended the Bears' four-game winning run. Lagway went 22 of 53 for 256 yards, and three straight long first-half drives ended in field-goal tries. Safety Micah Gifford forced a fumble and grabbed an interception late in the first half.
Kansas led Kansas State by 10 early but lost 35-24 in Manhattan. It was K-State's 18th straight win in the series. Marshall threw for 151 yards and ran for 116, but a facemask penalty wiped out his 45-yard touchdown run. Bryson Hayes returned a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown.
Fitz: Ninety-five yards. In my world that's a coast-to-coast fast break.
Injuries and availability
No official conference availability report has been published for this game. No injury news has surfaced for either team, so check back closer to kickoff.
What the coaches are up to
Dave Aranda called the TCU loss "frustrating," "disappointing" and "embarrassing". His defense hasn't allowed more than 19 points in any game. That's the program's longest such run to start a season since 1966, and the Bears have 22 sacks.
Lance Leipold said after the K-State loss, "our margin for error is very small, and you have to play clean". Kansas has lost nine turnovers and forced six. Leipold won six Division III national titles at Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Player storylines
Kansas runs for about 5.2 yards per carry, and Baylor allows about 87 rushing yards per game. That's the matchup. Edwards also scored against his former team, Kansas State, last week. Two weeks before TCU, Lagway threw four touchdowns in a 55-19 win at Arizona State.
Maggie: Same house, better lighting. Let's get Lagway back to that Arizona State floor plan.
What's happening on campus
It's KU's 114th Homecoming. The Homecoming Parade returns Friday at 6 p.m. on Jayhawk Boulevard, the first in seven years. Lawrence is also hosting the Big 12 Fall Tour, Oct. 22-24. Saturday brings a Big 12 tailgate on the Hill three hours before kickoff, with the Jack Wharff Band, and students in the south end get rally towels. The game is also Breast Cancer Awareness and Youth Sports Day. Homecoming weekend wraps up Sunday when KU men's basketball hosts Duke in the Blue Blood Classic exhibition.
Anything else fun and true
Kansas has won its last four homecoming games. It's also 1-0 against Baylor on homecoming, a 28-21 win in 2003. Baylor leads the all-time series 19-4, which Maggie calls "a very well-kept home."
Fitz: Homecoming magic, Maggie. That's a buzzer-beater kind of tradition.
Maggie: Cute. I'll bring paint swatches anyway. Crimson and blue is a bold palette, sugar. Green and gold is timeless.
The Cover Window
My call: Baylor Bears 28, Kansas Jayhawks 27.