RCW: Inside Football 3.2

Get a quick look inside your favorite Kansas Jayhawk programs each week with Rock Chalk Weekly’s Inside Sports pages. Notable statistics, quick hits and the top social media posts get every Jayhawk fan up-to-speed and ready for another week of thrilling competition.

Number BY THE NUMBERS
Kansas enters the 2016 season tied for ninth in the country with Iowa State in number of college graduates on the roster. The 10 Jayhawks who already earned their degrees are: Greg Allen, Courtney Arnick, Denzell Evans (Arkansas), Ben Johnson, Anthony Olobia, Marcquis Roberts (South Carolina), Cameron Rosser, Tevin Shaw, Jordan Shelley-Smith and Matthew Wyman.
 

UPCOMING HOME GAMES
Tickets Ohio (Sept. 10)
Tickets TCU (Oct. 8)

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Notes QUICK HITS

• For the 96th-consecutive season, Kansas will play its home games inside Memorial Stadium, which was built in 1921. The stadium is tied for seventh oldest in the country behind Georgia Tech (1913), Mississippi State (1914), Cincinnati (1916), Wisconsin (1917), Oklahoma State (1920) and Washington (1920). Others schools who started play in their current stadiums in 1921 include Stanford and Tennessee. .
• Prior to 1976, Kansas never played a season-opener during the first week of September, so in the last 40 years the Jayhawks have had their lid-lifter on September 3rd three other times in 2011, 2005 and 1983. After the turn of the century, the Jayhawks are undefeated on the third day of the ninth month. Kansas bested McNeese State 42-24 in 2011 and Florida Atlantic 30-19 in 2005. KU’s lone loss was to Northern Illinois, 37-34, in 1983. .
• Kansas will go for its 30th home, nonconference victory since 2003 when it hosts Rhode Island on Saturday, Sept. 3. Dating back to a 2003 loss to Northwestern in Lawrence, the Jayhawks are 29-5 against foes outside of the Big 12 Conference, outscoring these opponents by a margin of 1201-to-567. .
• Junior wide receiver LaQuvionte Gonzalez has had to wait what seemed like a lifetime for September 3, 2016. Gonzalez last saw action in a college football game on December 29, 2014 against West Virginia as a member of Texas A&M – a span of 614 days. To take it a step further, Gonzalez last had a catch in a game as an Aggie against SMU 100 days prior on September 20, 2014, meaning the Cedar Hill, Texas native has patiently had to endure 714 days of practice to showcase his blazing speed in a new uniform. .
• Senior safety Fish Smithson will look to continue his streak of double-digit tackles after recording his sixth-consecutive game with 10 or more stops at K-State (Nov. 21, 2015). Smithson is the first Jayhawk since at least 1990 to accomplish that feat.