The 2021 regular season wraps up this evening at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas, when West Virginia takes on the 2-9 Kansas Jayhawks in a game televised nationally on FS1.
 
Kansas recently upset Texas 57-56 in Austin two weeks ago and shows a season-opening 17-14 victory over South Dakota. Most recently, the Jayhawks dropped a 31-28 decision at TCU when the Horned Frogs kicked a game-winning field goal with six seconds left.
 
"First of all, coach (Lance) Leipold and his staff have done a tremendous job. His guys are getting better each and every week. They're prepared, they're playing hard, and schematically, they are difficult to go against," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said earlier this week. "Against Texas, they played as good as they've played all year and then they followed that up with a really gutsy performance against TCU. They got beat on a last-second field goal."
 
In its last two games with sophomore Jalon Daniels behind center, Kansas has scored 85 points and accounted for 799 yards of total offense. Daniels, a Lawndale, California, resident, passed for 202 yards and three touchdowns in the Texas win and followed that up with 255 yards and two touchdowns last Saturday at TCU.
 
"Jalon Daniels has been their catalyst," Brown said. "He's changed the whole dynamic of their team when he stepped into a starting role two weeks ago."
 
Kwamie Lassiter II has been Daniel's favorite target, the senior wide receiver catching eight passes for 68 yards and a touchdown against the Longhorns before adding eight grabs for 101 yards most recently against TCU.
 
Lassiter has a touchdown catch in Kansas' 2018 loss to the Mountaineers.
 
Freshman running back Devin Neal is a player to keep an eye on, depending upon whether he's on the field or in street clothes standing on the sidelines. The Lawrence resident injured his shoulder in the second quarter of the TCU game and did not return, and Lipold listed him as "questionable to doubtful" for tonight's game.
 
Neal ran for 107 yards in the Duke loss, topped 100 yards on 25 carries against Oklahoma and had 143 yards and three touchdowns in the Texas win.
 
If Neal can't go, the running back chores will be handled by redshirt freshman Amauri Pesek-Hickson, who has 48 carries for 158 yards this season.
 
Defensively, the players to keep an eye on tonight are defensive end Kyron Johnson (No. 15), linebacker Gavin Potter (No. 19) and safety Kenny Logan Jr. (No. 1).
 
Kansas has just one victory in all-time series play against West Virginia, but it came here in Lawrence back in 2013, 31-19. That was Kansas' first conference victory in more than three years and was deemed worthy enough by KU students to tear down the goal posts and take pieces of it out of the stadium.
 
Here is tonight's Countdown to Kickoff:
 
10 – In last year's game in Lawrence, West Virginia overcame an early TEN to nothing deficit to defeat the Jayhawks 38-17.
 
9 – Mountaineer quarterbacks have completed at least 20 passes in NINE of 11 games so far this season.
 
8 – West Virginia has scored on its opening offensive possession in EIGHT of 11 games heading into tonight's game against Kansas.
 
7 – Quarterback Jarret Doege has passes for 1,849 yards and 10 touchdowns in his last SEVEN games. Doege recently surpassed 10,000 career passing yards when combining his Bowling Green passing totals with his 6,143 yards at West Virginia.
 
6 – The WVU offense has possessed the football for more than 33 minutes in a game SIX times so far this year. West Virginia's 32:07 time of possession this season is tops in the Big 12.
 
5 – West Virginia has produced FIVE different 1,000-yard rushers since joining the Big 12 in 2012, including senior Leddie Brown who ran for 1,010 yards last season. He can repeat that with 91 yards rushing tonight.
 
4 – The WVU defense has limited its last FOUR opponents to less than 200 yards passing.
 
3 – The Mountaineers have THREE defenders ranked among the Big 12's top 25 tacklers this week: Josh Chandler-Semedo (No. 2), Sean Mahone (No. 12) and Alonzo Addae (No. 21).
 
2 – WVU has produced TWO different 100-yard receivers in the same game twice this season. Isaiah Esdale and Winston Wright Jr. did it against Texas Tech and Bryce Ford-Wheaton and Wright did it against Iowa State.
 
1 – With tonight's appearance, senior safety Sean Mahone is now FIRST in career games played with 54.
 
Tonight's game will kick off at 7 p.m. Mountaineer Sports Network coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. with the GoMart Mountaineer Tailgate Show leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
 
"We just need to continue being consistent, which is something that's eluded us all year," Brown said. "We played a three-phase football game against Texas, and now we have to do it again. That's the challenge for us because we have lacked consistency."
 
A win tonight by West Virginia would give it a 6-6 overall record and make it bowl eligible for the second straight year under Brown.