LAWRENCE, Kansas — The Kansas student known as Plunger Boy showed up to David Booth Memorial Stadium at 5:30 a.m. Saturday to make absolutely sure he would get his front row seat for the football game against Duke. He had waited overnight for basketball games at Allen Fieldhouse countless times. But getting to a football game early? Well, there is a first time for everything. So Plunger Boy, otherwise known as Noah Ginsberg, arrived with a group of friends, a handful of signs, the trademark plunger headband he wears on his head (a gag gift from his dad, he says), and waited.
Around two hours before kickoff, about 100 students had gathered, waiting for the gates to open, a giddy buzz filling the air as they wondered, “Are we really good at football?”
“Nothing gets a college fan base excited like a football team,” Ginsberg says.
Even here?
“Even here,” he continues. “We’ve been begging for football to be back. I’ve been waiting for a long time. My cousins go to Clemson, so I have to hear about that. Football, it brings people together, and that’s what we want KU football to be. I know it starts on the field, but it also starts with the fans. If we get fans back here, that’s where it starts.”
Getting fans to games has been tough sledding for Kansas football. Before this season, Kansas had gone 12 straight years with three wins or fewer — tied with Kent State (1989-2000) for the longest streak by a FBS team since the FBS/FCS split in 1978. Over 122 seasons, Kansas has made 12 bowl games and has an all-time record that sits below .500.
Meanwhile, Kansas men’s basketball has one of the best (the best, if you ask Kansas fans) home atmospheres in America at 16,300-seat Allen Fieldhouse — with a sellout streak of 336 games dating back to 2001. Fans come because they know they will see an elite team — Kansas is the defending national champions, with four total national championships. Last season, the Jayhawks passed Kentucky to become the winningest all-time Division I men’s basketball program.
But there are hardcore football fans in Kansas, and they were proud to share their stories on Saturday. Ginsberg has been coming to games since he was 8. He went to the 2008 Orange Bowl when Kansas beat Virginia Tech 24-21 and finished with a 12-1 record. He has attended every game as a student. So has his friend, Alex Ailey, also a senior. On this particular day, Ailey is wearing a red and blue spiked wig and a shirt that says quite simply, “We are back,” purchased three years ago in anticipation of this moment.
“You sit here and you say, ‘I’ve watched us lose by 45 every week,'” Ailey said.
“I’ve watched us lose by 60,” Ginsberg chimes in.
“But I fell in love with this team, my freshman year, when we lost to Nicholls State,” Ailey says. “That was my first KU game. Even though we lost to an FCS team, I saw this was a team worth sticking behind. I knew one day we would get there.”
Freshman Bryce Erickson chimes in next.
“There’s something about getting behind a team that’s trying to get over the hump, which makes it so special to be here,” Erickson said. “You know KU basketball is going to be good, but you don’t know KU football is going to be good every year.”
On the other side of the stadium, Dave Couch and his son, Colin, take their usual spots to greet the football team on arrival. They have done this for so long, the Couch family has become Kansas family. Coach Lance Leipold, and before him Les Miles, and well before him, Charlie Weis, would always make sure to stop and say hello. So do players, administrators, the parents of the players and security guards. If you follow Kansas athletics, you know the Couches.
They got season tickets in 1996, the year Colin was born. Colin is in a wheelchair, the result of a traumatic birth. Dave explains doctors didn’t know whether Colin would survive. But he did, and as he grew up, he connected with football in a way that made him the team’s biggest fan. As Dave talks, Colin makes sure to high five players and assistants as they head to the field for pregame warmups. One assistant screams, “It’s a great day to go 4-0!”
“Colin has got this mentality about being a warrior, because he’s fought since the day he was born just to be here,” Dave Couch says. “So he can relate to what it means to be pushed into a corner, but to not back down from it. Sports in general has that, but with football, you’re fighting on every play to try and win. Whether Colin knows it or not, that’s who he is, and that’s who he’s always been. I love the fact that this might have something to do with his love for football, too.”
Just behind them, the large grassy hill that leads up to the landmark Campanile is dotted with white tailgating tents as far as the eye can see. Freshman Quin Wittenauer is standing with a group of friends and shouts, “We’re a football school!”
Wait, Kansas a football school?
“It’s a dream come true,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for this since I was 5 years old. I’ve watched every KU game. It makes me want to cry. I’m in a KU uniform in my baby pictures.”
His friends AJ McDonald, Drake Doser, Mason Johnston, Adrian Dimond and Cadynce Marlow all start shouting in unison, their voices indistinguishable as they try and top one another on their Kansas football predictions.
“We want Bama!” they yell.
“No, no we want Georgia!”
“No, no no … Alabama wants US!”
Doser points out the white tent behind them. His parents and their friends decided to get a tailgating tent for this game around the time the season started, since it was parents weekend.
“We were supposed to have 10 people in the tent,” Shannon Doser says. “I think we have 100.”
At the top of the hill, on a bench that has a clear view of the stadium, Scott Johnson takes in the view. A Kansas graduate, class of 1970, he remembers going to games in the 1960s to watch Gale Sayers, Curtis McClinton and John Hadl.
“You know, they’ve had great football teams through history here,” Johnson says. “But the last 10 years have been rough. Really rough.”
Johnson drove 585 miles from his home in Colorado to come to the game, believing he could just get a ticket on game day like he always does. But when he arrived in town on Thursday, he learned the game was sold out — the first sellout since 2019.
“I’m kind of amazed,” he said.
So he decided he would sit on the bench to take it all in — even with an obstructed view of the field, thanks to the scoreboard behind the end zone.
Had Johnson made it into the stadium, he would have been a part of a loud, raucous crowd, one that was on its feet throughout the game. With Kansas leading late, security guards stood in front of the Kansas student section holding a rope — a signal they would not be allowed to come onto the field.
After Kansas made a defensive stop to seal the 35-27 victory and move to 4-0 for the first time since 2009, the crowd was at its loudest, waving white towels in the air to punctuate the moment. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, a will-they-or-won’t-they dance ensued between security and the students.
After a few moments delay, one segment of the rope was let down, and students poured onto the field in a fairly orderly fashion, without pushing, shoving or trampling but rather pure elation and some disbelief, streaming for the players chanting, “4-0! 4-0!”
“That was crazy,” receiver Luke Grimm said. “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I guess we’re doing this. You’ve got the announcer in the background, saying, ‘We expect to win, don’t run on the field,’ and the students are just like, ‘Whatever, we’re running on the field.’ So, you’re with family at that point because you’re just having fun and you just experienced something together.”
About 10 minutes after the students made it onto the field, they were asked to leave. As they trudged for the exits after filling their cell phone camera rolls with pics, one student turned to her friend and screamed, “I can’t believe we f—ing won!”
First baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Toronto Blue Jays are in agreement on a 14-year, $500 million contract extension, pending physical, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan on Sunday night.
This is a monumental, no-deferral deal to keep the homegrown star in Toronto for the rest of his career, and comes as the 5-5 Blue Jays are in the midst of a road trip that takes them to Fenway Park to meet the Boston Red Sox on Monday.
Guerrero, 26, a four-time All-Star and son of Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero, had said he would not negotiate during the season after the sides failed to come to an agreement before he reported to spring training. The sides continued talking, however, and sealed a deal that is the third largest in Major League Baseball history, behind only Juan Soto‘s 15-year, $765 million contract with the New York Mets and Shohei Ohtani‘s 10-year, $700 million pact with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Blue Jays, snakebit in recent years by Soto and Ohtani signing elsewhere, received a long-term commitment from their best homegrown talent since Hall of Famer Roy Halladay.
They had tried to sign Guerrero to a long-term deal for years to no avail. Toronto got a glimpse of Guerrero’s talent when he debuted shortly after his 20th birthday in 2019 and homered 15 times as a rookie. His breakout season came in 2021, when Guerrero finished second to Aaron Judge in American League MVP voting after hitting .311/.401/.601 with 48 home runs and 111 RBIs.
Guerrero followed with a pair of solid-but-below-expectations seasons in 2022 and 2023, and in mid-May 2024, he sported an OPS under .750 as the Blue Jays struggled en route to an eventual last-place finish. Over his last 116 games in 2024, the Guerrero of 2021 reemerged, as he hit .343/.407/.604 with 26 home runs and 84 RBIs.
With a payroll expected to exceed the luxury tax threshold of $241 million, the Blue Jays ended the season’s first week atop the American League East standings. Toronto dropped to 5-3 on Friday after a loss to the Mets, in which Guerrero collected a pair of singles, raising his season slash line to .267/.343/.367.
Between Guerrero and shortstop Bo Bichette‘s free agency after the 2025 season, the Blue Jays faced a potential reckoning. Though Bichette is expected to play out the season before hitting the open market, Guerrero’s deal lessens the sting of Toronto’s pursuits of Ohtani in 2023 and Soto in 2024.
Toronto shook off the signings of Soto and first baseman Pete Alonso with the Mets, left-hander Max Fried with the New York Yankees and infielder Alex Bregman with the Boston Red Sox to retool their roster. Toronto gave outfielder Anthony Santander a heavily deferred five-year, $92.5 million contract, brought in future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer on a one-year, $15.5 million deal, bolstered its bullpen with right-handers Jeff Hoffman and Yimi Garcia, and traded for Platinum Glove-winning second baseman Andres Gimenez, who is hitting cleanup.
Toronto’s long-term commitments will allow for significant financial flexibility. In addition to Bichette and Scherzer, right-hander Chris Bassitt and relievers Chad Green and Erik Swanson are free agents after this season. After 2026, the nine-figure deals of outfielder George Springer and right-hander Kevin Gausman come off the books, as well.
Building around Guerrero is a good place to start. One of only a dozen players in MLB with at least two seasons of six or more Wins Above Replacement since 2021, Guerrero consistently is near the top of MLB leaderboards in hardest-hit balls, a metric that typically translates to great success.
Like his father, who hit 449 home runs and batted .318 over a 16-year career, Guerrero has rare bat-to-ball skills, particularly for a player with top-of-the-scale power. In his six MLB seasons, Guerrero has hit .288/.363/.499 with 160 home runs, 510 RBIs and 559 strikeouts against 353 walks.
Originally a third baseman, Guerrero shifted to first base during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Had the Blue Jays signed Alonso, they signaled the possibility of Guerrero returning full time to third, where he played a dozen games last year.
With the extension in place, the 6-foot-2, 245-pound Guerrero is expected to remain at first base and reset a market that had been topped by the eight-year, $248 million extension Miguel Cabrera signed just shy of his 31st birthday in 2014.
Jamison Hensley is a reporter covering the Baltimore Ravens for ESPN. Jamison joined ESPN in 2011, covering the AFC North before focusing exclusively on the Ravens beginning in 2013. Jamison won the National Sports Media Association Maryland Sportswriter of the Year award in 2018, and he authored a book titled: Flying High: Stories of the Baltimore Ravens. He was the Ravens beat writer for the Baltimore Sun from 2000-2011.
The NASCAR legend announced Friday on social media that he has secured the right to use a stylized version of No. 8 and will abandon the original No. 8 logo used by Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports. This decision came two days after Jackson filed an opposition claim with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to stop Earnhardt from putting that JR Motorsports version of No. 8 on merchandising.
“We are looking forward to the remainder of an already successful season,” Earnhardt wrote on social media.
Jackson, who has worn No. 8 since his college days at Louisville, previously registered the trademark “ERA 8 by Lamar Jackson.” His filing had argued Earnhardt’s attempt to trademark that particular version of No. 8 would create confusion among consumers.
The trademark review for a challenge can take more than a year. If the U.S. Patent and Trademark appeal board would have denied Earnhardt, Jackson could have sued him if Earnhardt had used it for merchandising.
This isn’t the first time that Jackson has tried to stop another athlete from filing a trademark on this number. In July, Jackson challenged Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman’s attempt to use “EIGHT” on apparel and bags.
When asked about this dispute last summer, Jackson said, “We’re going to keep this about football. That’s outside noise. We’re sticking with [talking about training] camp, football, and that’s it.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Denny Hamlin did his job so his pit crew could do its most stellar stop at the perfect time.
Hamlin came into the pits after a final caution in third place and told himself to hit every mark, then let his guys take over.
And that’s what the Joe Gibbs Racing group did, pulling off a perfect winning moment that sent Hamlin out with the lead. He took over on the final restart and held off William Byron to win the Goodyear 400 on Sunday.
It was Hamlin’s 56th career NASCAR win, his fifth at Darlington Raceway and his second straight this season
“When you think about 56 wins, that’s a huge deal,” said Gibbs, Hamlin’s longtime car owner.
Hamlin said he hung on throughout as Byron and others looked like they might pull out victory. Instead, Hamlin waited out his time and then pounced as he broke away during the green-white-checkered finish.
“I can still do it, I can do it at a high level and look forward to winning a lot of races this year,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin won for a second straight week after his success at Martinsville.
Hamlin chose the outside lane for a final restart and shot out to the lead and pulled away from series points leader Byron and NASCAR wins leader Christopher Bell.
Hamlin looked like he’d have a strong finish, but not a winning one as Ryan Blaney passed Tyler Reddick for the lead with three laps left. But moments later, Kyle Larson spun out forcing a final caution and the extra laps.
It was then time for Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew to shine as it got him out quickly and in the lead.
Byron, who led the first 243 laps, was second with Hamlin’s JGR teammate Bell in third.
“There are two people I really love right now, my pit crew and Kyle Larson,” Hamlin said to a round of boos from those in the stands.
Hamlin credited the past two victories to his pit crew.
“The pit crew just did an amazing job,” he said. “They won it last week, they won it this week. It’s all about them.”
Blaney had thought he was clear to his first-ever Darlington victory after getting by Reddick late. When he saw the caution flag for Larson’s spin, he said he thought, “Oh, no! I thought we had the race won.”
So did Byron, who sought was to become the first NASCAR driver in nearly 25 years to lead every lap on the way to victory. He got shuffled down the standings during the last round of green-flag pit stops and could not recover.
“It was looking like it was going to be a perfect race and we were going to lead every lap,” he said.
But once “we lost control, it was too late to get back up there,” Byron said.
Bad day
Kyle Larson, who won the Southern 500 here in 2023, had high hopes for a second Darlington win. But he slid into the inside wall coming off the second turn on lap three and went right to garage where his team worked the next couple of hours to get him back on track. Larson returned on lap 164 after falling 161 laps off the pace. Larson finished next to last in 37th.
Biffle’s ride
Greg Biffle, the last NASCAR driver to win consecutive Cup Series victories at Darlington in 2006 and 2007, drove the pace car for the Goodyear 400 on Sunday. Biffle has had an eventful few months, flying rescue missions with his helicopter into areas of the Southeast affected by devastating Hurricane Helene in September.
Biffle was planning a weeklong trip to the Bahamas when his phone started going off about people stranded in parts of Western North Carolina.
“I went to the hangar and the power was out,” Biffle said. “We got the hangar down open with the tug and got the helicopter out. Once I got in the air, I realized what had taken place.”
Biffle then flew the next 11 days from “sunup to sundown.”
“It was incredible,” Biffle said. “It was pretty tough going for the first week.”
Biffle won the Myers Brothers Humanitarian Award for his work.
Up next
The series goes to Bristol on April 13 before taking its traditional Easter break.
