‘College football comes to Wembley – I flew to Kansas to see what it’s all about’
College football has long had a penchant for unparalleled grandeur, as if orchestrated by an anonymous overlord plucking the strings to tradition-rich sporting cinema that blends opulence with local exclusivity. Now, it is taking its theatre on tour, where London’s greatest stage beckons.It is gameday, on rivalry weekend, in the city of Lawrence, Kansas. The sun has barely yawned upon rising and we are in transit to see if the Kansas Jayhawks can snap their run of 16 consecutive defeats to Kansas State.
A camel’s hump hill of near-roller coaster up-and-down inevitability approaches, beyond which the horizoning view is a little obscure. It comes with a notion of anticipation, dramatised-expectation I later found myself recalling while watching the car chase at the conclusion of Leonardo Di Caprio’s new film ‘One Battle After Another’, where the amplified steepness of each slope promises and yet veils every ensuing moment of delayed climax. A spectacle was on the other side, you could feel it. Somewhere above, the overlord was playing stirring music to accompany its latest college scene.
As we finally crept to the top of the road, a revamped David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium presented itself, hogging the landscape as the glistening centre piece to a contrastingly-subtle, quiet town dictated by its college sport culture.”People don’t come to Kansas unless you have a very specific reason,” said Deputy Athletics Director – Chief Strategy Officer Collin Sexton.
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Modest student houses lined the roads as red cups from the previous night’s beer pong exploits stood out in the face of a grey, rainy morning, while royal blue jerseys emerged sporadically from all directions as if swarming to a town-wide siren. Music blared and hair-of-the-dog beers flowed as cohorts of students united at pre-game gatherings, while hundreds of band members, armed with every possible brass and woodwind weapon of choice, cascaded onto the street in an answer to the ‘how many orchestral members can you fit in a lorry?’ joke.
Some families nestled into camping chairs as they tailgated in parking lots safe from the rain, while patches of green surrounding the stadium were flooded with food and drink stalls, cornhole games, mascots, music and students to ignite an atmosphere that might have suggested this was the only sporting even taking place in the country at that moment.
The game hadn’t started. And yet it had. Welcome to college football.Now imagine perching at the top of the Wembley Park underground station staircase, gazing out and witnessing Olympic Way decorated with college marching bands, tailgating stands and a sea of blue and maroon paving the way to history.Imagination can become reality on Saturday September 19 2026 when the Jayhawks face the Arizona State Sun Devils in the inaugural Union Jack Classic at Wembley Stadium. College football has conquered Dublin, and now London’s tried-and-tested football fanbase has been blessed with its own opportunity to alter the sporting landscape once more.Wembley, too, embraces a new chapter of its own as the long-time home-from-home for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the NFL branches out to the magic of college ball.
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“I’ve always been kind of into that world of doing something different,” said Jayhawks head coach Lance Leipold. “I was a graduate assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin, we played in Tokyo, Japan and took a game there. I look back at the life experience of what that was. Anytime you have a chance to grow this, you look at the NFL and the NBA, they wouldn’t keep doing it if they were failing.”This is a new way to connect, I think this could be something really special that could be for years to come if we do it right. What I hope is there are some people in London who really get into college football and become Jayhawk fans.”Brian Dubiski, Chairman and CEO of Union Jack Classic, Thomas Hensey and Rob Yowell stand as the men behind college football’s historic Wembley bow. Between them they alone capture what makes college football unique, unequivocally impassioned and committed in their bid to secure longevity and establish a new footballing legacy in the UK’s capital. They believe college is king, and they want the world to adore it as they do.They would take it upon themselves to showcase everything ingrained in college football’s coveted DNA, namely steering us towards the Kansas locals around whom week football, sport and gameday revolves, from the crack-of-dawn parties to the on-field action to the community camaraderie and beyond.It is a different world to that of the NFL; college football is about the people and the unyielding hometown pride, where fans can root for neighbours and roommates, where fans diligently follow the careers of young players on their path to the NFL where, once there, players become the ‘I know him!’ stories of their long-time supporters. It is a tight-knit family, a loud family, a devoted family. And it is coming to the biggest sporting stage of all in the UK.
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“London’s London, and I think right out of the gates, when you talk about the great cities in the world and us having a chance to be on that platform, you think about the tetherness of alumni I have with our place, it transcends sport, transcends football,” said Kansas Director of Athletics and Vice Chancellor Travis Goff.”You layer in Wembley, which doesn’t matter in America if you follow soccer or don’t, you know the name and it’s iconic.”The preceding Friday night had delivered an insight into the party that was to come as more than 8,000 fans flocked to watch the famed Jayhawks women’s volleyball team take on Kansas State, the contest having been relocated from the volleyball arena to the larger basketball arena such had been the interest in tickets. EIGHT thousand people at a college volleyball game.Raucous festivities catered to all, from young children to UK journalists watching live volleyball for the very first time, the fiercest of competition on-court serenaded by an electric atmosphere. Come Saturday, it was football’s turn.Dozens of prospective high school recruits had been purposely positioned at the back of the end zone and adjacent to the player tunnel prior to kick-off as Kansas sought to parade their pyro appeal as an unrivalled focal point to their local community. We were dotted along the accompanying sideline as expertly-choreographed orchestral performances and cheerleader displays took centre stage while Coach Leipold selflessly spared a moment from of his pre-game preparations to express his excitement at the presence of UK representatives.It was breathless, rarely a minute going by without some dose of pomp or pageantry as fans engaged in their traditional ‘Rock Chalk’ chant before the strobe lighting of the home entrance finally lit the way for Leipold and his team to announce their arrival. Cinema.
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Bedlam followed as Kansas produced a forced fumble and recovery on the opening kickoff of the game, The Booth crowd erupting to shudder its newly-renovating infrastructure. Star quarterback Jalon Daniels would eventually reward the play with a six-yard rushing touchdown, beyond which there was admittedly little to shout about as Kansas fell to a 42-17 defeat. The rain threatened its own pathetic fallacy, and yet an undeterred Super Bowl-winning alumni Aqib Talib continued to stand and watch his old team, while the rain-mack-protected student band played on in the stands.One man in front of me frequently berated his team for the smallest of errors, from poor snaps to miscommunications. Sure, a little positivity may have been in order, but it was a sign of how invested the town was in its football team. Football was everything.Breaks in the game were filled with tributes to armed forces personnel, former players and the Union Jack Classic team, as well as the school’s most successful women’s volleyball team. College football nor college sport never forgets its past servants and supporters. Family.Win or lose, the party would continue late into the night. College football was THE day of the week, THE event of the week, every week.Kansas’ upgraded 41,500-capacity stadium would prove a beacon of the nation’s sizeable investment in college football and the calibre of prestige that continues to stagger unknowing outside observers upon discovery. College students playing in the most professional of environments is old news, and yet it never fades in bewonderment.
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College Football is coming to Wembley on September 19, 2026
A tour of the facility would introduce us to elite individual multi-purpose work stations in the team gym ensuring no player would need to waste a single second by switching equipment, as well as a specialised Artificial Intelligence room – the likes of which none of us had seen before – in which technology could mock up an opponent’s life-size formations in order for Kansas to study schematics and pre-meditate their approach. It was the future of sport, being used at college level.It also introduced us to Australian punter Finn Lappin, who outlined his intentions to travel to watch his team in London next year despite the reality he would have already graduated. He spoke for the programme’s enthusiasm in the move.”We already knew coach was on board with an international game. Made one call with the Chancellor, he didn’t flinch, game on,” said Sexton.One member of staff joked that people ‘thought of tumble weeds’ when it came to perceptions of Lawrence.He wasn’t wrong. Stroll into the local high street on a Monday morning and it had the feelings of a ghost town reminiscent of a stereotypical old-time western movie. You could hear a pin drop.In many ways it was the perfect disguise for the giant down the road. And while the nation may boast bigger fish than Kansas, the Jayhawks programme was the undisputed heart and soul, capable of bringing everybody together.The contrast proved fitting, shining a light on the enormity, the value, the weight and the influence of college football. That it would pack its bags and travel into unchartered territory in London is both refreshing progressiveness and needle-moving boldness. It is a staple of localised American sport; London must not take it for granted.Sky Sports NFL’s new series ‘NFL to the World’ shines a light on stories of how American Football has expanded beyond the borders of the United States.Part One: Meet the man leading Wheelchair American Football’s Paralympic dreamMeet Geraint Griffiths, the man leading Wheelchair American Football’s pursuit of a dream place at the Paralympic Games.
Part Two: The NFL Academy dancer who escaped Nigeria’s violent ‘trenches’ Benson Jerry. The kid with the fancy footwork. The kid that borrowed 30p for the bus. The kid that had never tried lasagne. The kid that had never flown. The no-longer-a-kid becoming the inspiration kids like him never had.
Part Three: How Ireland became a powerhouse for the NFL’s global expansionThey support in unwavering numbers, they amplify at bar-raising levels, they romanticise their sporting legacy, they immerse themselves in football, they unite to champion their stage like few others, they welcome the world, and they kick; boy, can they kick. Ireland has become a rousing cocktail for the sport’s international growth and one of football’s most multi-faceted homes from home.
Part Four: From the beaches to the world… Meet the face of Brazilian footballGabi Bankhardt is Samba. She is Bossa Nova. She is Christ the Redeemer and she is Carnival. She is the favelas. She is churrasco and she is Copacabana. She is mutirão.We meet Brazil Flag Football ambassador Gabi Bankhardt as she inspires football’s explosion in Latin America.
Part Five: ‘I was Verstappen’s teammate – now I play American football around the world’A tantalising thought of what could have been may always linger in the background for Samuel Oram-Jones. But there are few on the planet who can say they share his story. That’s even before Japanese karaoke…
Part Six: Meet the NFL marketing agent seeking the Patrick Mahomes of Flag FootballMeet Jacquelyn Dahl, the agent of Patrick Mahomes searching for the future Olympic stars of Flag Football.”I think that female flag football players are going to be the icons of LA 2028, it’s happening.”
Part Seven: Why ‘global phenomenon’ Flag Football is booming on road to OlympicsWe meet IFAF president Pierre Trochet to discuss Flag football’s historic Olympics debut at Los Angeles 2028.”In Samoa we entered an IFAF competition for the first time, we are going to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Uganda. We are obviously in all the NFL market, but also way, way beyond.”It’s a global phenomenon.”
Part Eight: The NFL brings ‘mini-Super Bowl’ to Real Madrid’s Bernabeu – what does it mean?Hola y bienvenido a Madrid. Hello, and welcome to Madrid, where a fusion of sporting behemoths and cultural magnitude brews in wait as one of the NFL’s most momentous global power moves yet.”This is going to be like a mini Super Bowl,” Rafael De Los Santos, NFL Spain Country Manager, told Sky Sports NFL.
Watch the 2025 NFL season live on Sky Sports, including every London and European game as well as every minute of the playoffs and Super Bowl LX; Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW.
Publicado: 2025-11-27 06:00:00
fonte: www.skysports.com
