Kansas wins football game for first time in while

Kansas won an actual football game, its first in nearly two years, coming from behind at home to notch a 17-14 verdict over South Dakota.

Not South Dakota State, the school that beat Kansas in 2015, and has been an FCS power for years, but South Dakota, another FCS team, but one which hasn’t had a winning record since 2017.

Did the Jayhawks cover? No, they were 11.5-point favorites. But that’s not a surprise, because good teams win and great teams cover. And Kansas officially is a good team with a better record this season than Nebraska.

For what it’s worth, South Dakota State did notch another win over an FBS team on Friday night, going to Colorado State and taking down the Rams, 42-23.

An FBS school paying to get waxed by an FCS team never gets old.

In related news, Fordham visits Nebraska on Saturday and getting a cool half-million bucks. Happy Scott Frost Day to you and yours.

Georgia-Clemson and Alabama-Miami are the standout games on the college football slate for Saturday, but there also are some mind-warpers out there on the schedule, one of the most fun parts of non-conference season.

Some highlights, and, for entertainment purposes only, fun-matchup point spread picks based on no information whatsoever, except possibly weird rooting interests, just to see how it goes because it’s more fun than putting thought into it.

Army +2 at Georgia State

Pittsburgh -38 vs. UMass

Texas A&M -29.5 vs. Kent State

Texas-San Antonio +4.5 at Illinois

Also, Lafayette is playing at Air Force and Eastern Illinois at South Carolina, and it’s more fun to wonder how these teams find each other to schedule games than to actually know that the coaches are old fishing buddies or whatever.

World Cup qualifiers, on the other hand, have no mystery, and are even done by region, but Saturday still features such goofball matchups as Finland-Kazakhstan and Gibraltar-Turkey.

But the real fun, of course, is in FA Cup qualifying, which on Saturday includes these not-made-up matches:

Anstey Nomads vs. Stone Old Alleynians

Biggleswade Town vs. Hitchin Town

Bootle vs. FC United of Manchester

Cray Wanderers vs. Sutton Common Rovers

Kidlington vs. Bishop’s Cleeve

Leek Town vs. Mickleover

Poole Town vs. Swindon Supermarine

Runcorn Linnets vs. Liversedge

Weston-super-Mare vs. Flackwell Heath

Worthing vs. Corinthian-Casuals

In the Welsh Cup, Ynysygerwn faces Cambrian and Clydach Vale.

It’s good to have all of this action as a Sunderland fan because thanks to international callups, the Black Cats don’t have a match on Saturday, pushing back their scheduled date with Sheffield Wednesday to a later date with a one-in-seven chance of the best kind of schedule bingo hit, playing Sheffield Wednesday, Wednesday.