Daily Bull October 3, 1998: How We Barely Beat Kansas

Good morning, 1998 enthusiasts. In keeping with Nostalgia Week around here, today we’re flashing back exactly 20 years to the Kansas game, an awkward little hurdle in that magical 10-game win streak the Ags cobbled together twenty years ago.

There is still a scanned PDF of this game’s box score on the Kansas athletics website that tells the full tale, but here’s the gist: The Aggies rolled into Lawrence for their first Big 12 game of the season ranked 18th after dispatching the three cupcakes that followed the Florida State opening loss.

It wasn’t supposed to be this close. Slocum’s boys jumped out to an early 14-0 lead, Dante Hall rumbled for over 180 yards and three touchdowns, and the defense held the Jayhawks to under 300 yards of offense. But in between the cracks of the statlines there was sloppiness: far more penalties than Kansas, a very generous third down conversion rate allowed to the Jayhawks, and the offensive line gave up four sacks of Randy McCown.

Kansas actually went ahead in this game in the fourth quarter, 21-17. Dante Hall scored his third touchdown of the day with under 4 minutes remaining to salt this one away. There was a sort of sigh of relief that the Ags were able to get out of there with a conference win. Nebraska came to Kyle Field the following week, and we all know how the rest of October and November played out.

But the team opened conference play on the road in an 11:30 kickoff against an inferior team that they struggled with. Not too much of a stretch to point out the similarities to last week. Maybe Kentucky 2018 is supposed to be that big signature win that sparks a memorable run in the middle part of the season. At least the team’s going to dress the part Saturday just in case.