Baylor at Kansas
Kansas (2‑4) hosts Baylor (4‑2). The market has Baylor favored by 2.5. Baylor’s offense is at the 11th percentile on success rate; Kansas’s defense is at the 86th.
How they got here
Last three games
Baylor · 4-2
Rated 33rd in our preseason ratings, 31st now.
2-1 in its last three, including a 36-point win over Arizona State as a 3.5-point underdog.
Last three games
Kansas · 2-4
Rated 87th in our preseason ratings, 58th now, up 29 spots.
1-2 in its last three — but nothing on this résumé beats a top-40 team yet.
Biggest mismatch: Baylor’s success rate against Kansas, 75 points
Each row ranks the two sides among all teams. The longer the line, the bigger the mismatch.
Baylor’s success rate against Kansas’s defense
Baylor offense, 11th percentile · Kansas defense, 86th
Baylor’s explosive plays against Kansas’s defense
Baylor offense, 92nd percentile · Kansas defense, 27th
Baylor’s rushing EPA against Kansas’s defense
Baylor offense, 30th percentile · Kansas defense, 87th
What’s at stake
Baylor
- Baylor needs 2 more wins in the final 5 to reach bowl eligibility — 97% to get there with a win here, 80% with a loss.
- Dave Aranda is 3-0 all-time against Lance Leipold.
Kansas
- Kansas needs 4 more wins in the final 5 to reach bowl eligibility — 41% to get there with a win here, 14% with a loss.
- Lance Leipold is 0-3 all-time against Dave Aranda.
The series
Baylor leads the series 19-4
23 meetings since 1971 · Baylor has won the last 14
- 2024Baylor 45-17
- 2022Baylor 35-23
- 2021Baylor 45-7
- 2020Baylor 47-14
- 2019Baylor 61-6
Each line is Kansas’s chance to win through that meeting.
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Baylor
The chip · vs the national mediaBears fans say the country still files Baylor under one chapter of its past and refuses to look at what the program rebuilt — they say Waco won a Big 12 title the honest way and never got credit for the climb.
What this game touches
The 2025 regression under Aranda. Four years after the Big 12 title, Baylor slid to 5-7 in 2025 despite Sawyer Robertson leading the nation in passing yards — a defense that ranked near the bottom of FBS dragged the Bears below .500, reviving the question of whether the Aranda revival had stalled.
Kansas
The chip · vs the national mediaFans are tired of being told their school only cares from November to March — that football is a hobby in a basketball town. They point at the Orange Bowl banner and the Leipold revival and ask to be taken seriously between the whistles, too.
What this game touches
The long fall after the 2008 Orange Bowl. Kansas won the Orange Bowl to cap a 12-1 season in 2007, then collapsed into one of the bleakest stretches in major-college football — a decade-plus of double-digit losses before Lance Leipold arrived. The 2025 team's 5-7 finish, missing a bowl for a second straight year, was a reminder of how thin the margin still is.
Best players
Baylor
- Gavin Freeman (WR) · 555 receiving yards
- Travion Barnes (LB) · 35 tackles
- Micah Gifford (S) · 30 tackles
Kansas
- Trey Lathan (LB) · 41 tackles
- Nik McMillan (WR) · 400 receiving yards
- Isaiah Marshall (QB) · 1,294 passing yards
The betting line, and the fans
Kansas fans are in a better mood than Baylor fans (15th vs 5th among FBS fanbases), even with Baylor favored.
Baylor favored by 2.5 · Total 53.5
Baylor by 2.5: where a favorite like this usually runs
Half of games8 in 10 games
Baylor’s chance through the game, if this goes like the 256 games since 2025 with a favorite of under 3.5 points.
Weather at kickoff
Warm. No coat needed.
Baylor at Kansas · Saturday, Oct. 24 · 1 pm ET · TNT · Memorial Stadium.
- 74°feels like
- 0%average rain chance
- 16 mphwind gusts
- 100weather score, Ideal
Forecast, read Fri Oct 23, 3:20 am ET. It can change until kickoff.
Weather score: 0 to 100, higher is better, for the first 3 hours and 20 minutes of the game. Ideal is 100, Comfortable 90 to 99, Mixed 75 to 89, Rough 50 to 74, Harsh under 50. Gusts count toward the score (up to 15 points). Average rain chance: the hourly chances of rain over the first 3 hours and 20 minutes, averaged.
Tied for the highest forecast of this Saturday's 33 TV games with a forecast
- Baylor at Kansas: 100, Ideal
- Boston College at Georgia Tech: 100, Ideal
- Colorado at Oklahoma State: 100, Ideal
- Eastern Michigan at Ohio: 100, Ideal
- Indiana at Michigan: 100, Ideal
- Iowa State at Arizona: 100, Ideal
- Kansas State at Arizona State: 100, Ideal
- LSU at Auburn: 100, Ideal
- Michigan State at UCLA: 100, Ideal
- North Texas at Navy: 100, Ideal
- Oklahoma at Mississippi State: 100, Ideal
- Oregon at Illinois: 100, Ideal
- Tennessee at South Carolina: 100, Ideal
- Texas A&M at Alabama: 100, Ideal
- Texas Tech at Cincinnati: 100, Ideal
- USC at Wisconsin: 100, Ideal
- UTSA at Tulane: 100, Ideal
- West Virginia at TCU: 100, Ideal
- Western Michigan at Toledo: 100, Ideal
- California at SMU: 99, Comfortable
- Vanderbilt at Kentucky: 98, Comfortable
- Boise State at Washington State: 97, Comfortable
- Iowa at Minnesota: 97, Comfortable
- Utah State at Texas State: 96, Comfortable
- Ole Miss at Texas: 95, Comfortable
- Syracuse at North Carolina: 95, Comfortable
- Virginia Tech at Clemson: 95, Comfortable
- Houston at Utah: 93, Comfortable
- North Dakota State at New Mexico: 93, Comfortable
- San Diego State at Colorado State: 91, Comfortable
- BYU at UCF: 88, Mixed
- Pittsburgh at Miami: 85, Mixed
- Rice at Florida Atlantic: 85, Mixed
Tap a dot to read the game.
Forecast, read Fri Oct 23, 3:20 am to 9:20 am ET (each game has its own read time). It can change until kickoff.
If it kicked off at
Typical at Memorial Stadium: noon Saturdays score 86, 3:30 pm 83, 7:30 pm 88.
- noon: 86, Mixed
- 3:30 pm: 83, Mixed
- 7:30 pm: 88, Mixed
Typical weather score at each kickoff time.
Typical means the average of regular-season Saturdays at this stadium, 2018 to 2025. It is not a forecast for this game.
Home field
Kansas is worth +3.2 points (±4.6) more at home than on the road since 2018 — bottom third of FBS, 32nd percentile.
38% at home, 22% on the road against FBS opponents (15-25 home, 10-36 away).
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge (why); the books use about 3. Against the closing line this stadium reads -1.0 at home vs. away over 92 games — inside the ±6.8 noise, so the flat number is the honest one here.
The visitors travel about 522 miles to get here.
Season profile
Week by week
Kansas
- Wk 2Lvs Missouri21-38
- Wk 3Lvs Arizona State17-24
- Wk 5Wvs Middle Tennessee55-0
- Wk 6Lat Utah24-41
- Wk 7Lat Kansas State24-35
Baylor
- Wk 2Wvs Prairie View A&M44-3
- Wk 3Wvs Louisiana Tech36-19
- Wk 4Wvs Colorado23-13
- Wk 5Wat Arizona State55-19
- Wk 7Lvs TCU6-17
Power rating by week
Baylor is rated 3.9 points ahead as of week 8. Our power rating by week; higher is better.
The market
The spread moved 1 point toward Baylor.
The total fell 1 point.
Spread: +1.5 → +2.5 · Total: 54.5 → 53.5
The books’ cut: 4.2%, the margin built into the odds
Conference standings
Place in the conference, then conference record.