The University of Kansas announced plans Friday for long-awaited renovations to Memorial Stadium, the Anderson Family Football Complex and other facilities along with potential conference, entertainment and retail spaces.
The school has long studied ways to renovate the aging stadium, one of the oldest football venues in major college football, but support has been tepid as the Jayhawks struggled through year after year of losing seasons. The few upgrades that have taken place have been largely cosmetic, leaving the old concrete bowl almost entirely untouched.
But buoyed by a 5-0 start to the season, which has energized fans of the No. 19 Jayhawks, the school decided it was time to make public the behind-the-scenes discussions that have been taking place for the past several months.
“This project is unmatched in its vision to benefit a broad range of KU constituents while signaling a new era for Kansas football,” Jayhawks athletic director Travis Goff said. “Once complete, this project will ensure our football program has the facilities it needs to compete at the highest level and provide the best possible game-day experience for student-athletes and fans. Moreover, we are thrilled this project goes beyond football to benefit the entire university and the region.”
The Jayhawks face No. 17 TCU on Saturday in a showdown of unbeatens. It is the third consecutive sellout for the school, and ESPN has brought its popular College GameDay program to campus for the first time.
The project comes during a transformative era in college sports, in which the appeal of schools amid conference realignment — even at Kansas, the defending men’s basketball national champion — has been dictated almost entirely by football.
Kansas has chosen HNTB as the lead architect for its project. It will begin early next year with renovations to the football complex that are designed to improve the student-athlete experience, along with appealing to potential recruits, and include groundwork for the bigger renovation to the stadium.
The project, which is expected to cost more than $300 million, will be funded primarily through private donations, economic development funds, premium seating sales and future development opportunities on site.
“The intersection near 11th and Mississippi streets is a primary campus entrance for prospective students, alumni and guests,” Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod said. “For these reasons, it’s the ideal location to develop a new gateway with multi-use facilities to better serve these audiences, generate revenue for academic programming, drive economic growth in the region, and reimagine our football facilities.”
The renovations to Memorial Stadium are likely to attract the most attention. The school is promising improved sight lines and seating experiences in the lower bowl, where fans are far from the field because of the existence of the since-removed athletics track, along with improved concourses, premium seating and other amenities.
Exact renderings of the stadium will be revealed later, once the school and partner Elevate Sports Ventures conduct fan focus groups and solicit other feedback from influential donors on what they envision in a football facility.
“Now more than ever, college athletics — and certainly sustained success in the sport of football — are critical to the health and vibrancy of our entire university community,” Goff said. “There is tremendous excitement for this project among donors and partners who believe in KU’s mission, and in partnership with KU Endowment, we’ll be reaching out in earnest to our benefactors and supporters to ensure this ambitious vision becomes reality.”
Ohio State climbed to No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll on Tuesday, LSU and Miami moved into the top five, and Florida State jumped back into the rankings at the expense of Alabama, which plummeted to its lowest spot in 17 seasons.
The defending national champion Buckeyes received 55 of 66 first-place votes to move up two spots after their win over preseason No. 1Texas. Ohio State is at the top of a regular-season poll for the first time since November 2015.
The Longhorns dropped to No. 7 as the media voters shuffled the rankings following a topsy-turvy Labor Day weekend. It was only the second time — and first since 1972 — that two top-five teams lost in Week 1 and the first time that four top-10 teams lost.
Only three teams in the Top 25 are in the same spot they were in the preseason poll.
Penn State got seven first-place votes and remained No. 2. LSU, which received three first first-place votes, was followed by Georgia and Miami to round out the top five.
The biggest movers in the poll were Florida State and Alabama after the Seminoles’ 31-17 victory in their head-to-head matchup.
The Seminoles, who were 15 spots outside the Top 25 in the preseason, are now No. 14. The Crimson Tide fell all the way from No. 8 to No. 21 — their lowest ranking since Bama was No. 24 in the 2008 preseason poll. That was the second of Nick Saban’s 17 teams in Tuscaloosa.
It’s been quite a turnabout for Florida State. The Seminoles were No. 10 in the 2024 preseason, lost their first two games, finished 2-10 and weren’t ranked again until now.
Utah, at No. 25, joins Florida State as the only newcomers to this week’s poll. The Utes are ranked for the first time since last October, when they were at the front end of a seven-game losing streak.
Utah had received the second-most points, behind BYU, among teams outside the preseason Top 25, but the Utes got more credit for beatingUCLA on the road than the Cougars received for hammering FCS foe Portland State.
Boise State, which had been No. 25, received no votes following its 34-7 loss at South Florida. The Broncos had appeared in 14 straight polls.
Ohio State is the first team to take over the top spot in the first regular-season poll since Alabama in 2012. It was the biggest jump to No. 1 in the first regular-season poll since USC was promoted from No. 3 in 2008.
Texas’ fall was the biggest for a preseason No. 1 since Auburn dropped to No. 8 in the first regular-season poll of 1984.
LSU has its highest ranking after Week 1 since it was No. 3 in 2012, and Miami has its highest ranking after Week 1 since it was No. 5 in 2004.
South Carolina is in the top 10 in the regular season for the first time since it was No. 8 in December 2013.
No. 15 Michigan at No. 18 Oklahoma: This weekend’s game will be the first meeting since Oklahoma beat the Wolverines in the Orange Bowl to win the 1975 national championship. Wolverines freshman QB Bryce Underwood gets put to the test in his second start.
College football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.
While Dabo Swinney isn’t inflating LSU‘s grade for beating his team in Saturday’s season opener, Brian Kelly is ready to give the Clemson coach an incomplete for his evaluation.
Both coaches weighed in Tuesday on how LSU’s 17-10 win at Clemson should be viewed. After trailing 10-3 at halftime, LSU outscored Clemson 14-0 in the second half and finished with significant edges in both total yards (354-261) and first downs (25-13).
LSU rose six spots to No. 3 in the AP Top 25 poll Tuesday, while Clemson dropped four spots to No. 8.
“It was a helluva game, down to the last play,” Swinney said in his weekly news conference. “Right out of the gate. It’s like getting the final exam [on] Day 1 of class. They made a 65; we made a 58. Neither one of us were great.”
Kelly had not won a season opener at LSU before Saturday, and the victory was his first with the Tigers against an AP top-5 opponent.
“I thought we dominated them in the second half, so he’s really a really good grader for giving himself a 58, or he’s a really hard grader on us,” Kelly said in his news conference when told about Swinney’s comment.
“Or he didn’t see the second half, which, that might be the case. He might not have wanted to see the second half.”
Kelly added that LSU is moving on to this week’s game against Louisiana Tech.
“Clemson is a darn good football team,” Kelly said. “That’s a top-notch team, and they’re going to be a team in the hunt for [the] playoff picture. We hope we are, too. But it was only one game. So I don’t know if he’s a hard grader or an easy grader, but I like the way that we played in the second half.”
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said Bryce Underwood “looks to be wise beyond his years” and compared Michigan‘s freshman quarterback to former Clemson national championship QB Trevor Lawrence on Tuesday ahead of the No. 18 Sooners’ Week 2 visit from the No. 15 Wolverines.
Underwood, ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit in the 2025 class, will make his second career start at Oklahoma on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
The coveted freshman earned Michigan’s starting job at the end of fall camp, beating out a collection of experienced passers on the depth chart including offseason portal additions Mikey Keene (Fresno State) and Jake Garcia (East Carolina). Underwood delivered a smooth college debut against New Mexico in Week 1, completing 21 of 31 passes for 251 yards and a touchdown in Michigan’s 34-17 win.
At Oklahoma, Underwood is set to face a much stiffer challenge against Venables, who resumed control of the Sooners’ defensive playcalling ahead of the 2024 season, and an experienced defense that held Illinois State to 151 yards of total offense in Week 1.
The former Clemson defensive coordinator compared Underwood to Lawrence, the five-star quarterback prospect who started as a freshman in 2018 and led the Tigers to a national championship win over Alabama.
“He’s a little different,” Venables said of Underwood. “It reminds me a lot of a Trevor Lawrence. Quick. Decisive. Accurate. Poised. Tough. Consistent. There’s a reason he was the No. 1 player in America. And he’s got a maturity and a work ethic and leadership agility to go along with that.”
As Oklahoma seeks to rebound from a 6-7 finish last fall, a new-look Sooners offense will get a test of its own Saturday.
Behind transfer QB John Mateer and first-year offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, Oklahoma gained 495 yards of offense in its 35-3, season-opening win over Illinois State. Mateer, who arrived in the offseason from Washington State alongside Arbuckle, passed Baker Mayfield for the most passing yards by an Oklahoma QB in a debut with 392 yards.
On Tuesday, Venables highlighted the Wolverines’ experience on defense, particularly in the front seven, as a defining challenge for the Sooners in an intriguing Week 2 matchup between two of college football’s most storied brands.
“[It’s] a defense that for the last several years has been one of the gold standards of college football when it comes to playing good defense,” Venables said. “It’s going to be a great physical matchup, and for us, a great litmus test to where we’re at.”