The Dallas Cowboys’ lone Kansas Jayhawk: ‘It’s incredible; I’m on that bandwagon, too’
When Dorance Armstrong’s teammates brag on their alma maters inside the Dallas Cowboys’ locker room, he knows he can’t say too much.
Like, nothing.
“No, no, no,” he said. “Up until this year, I never got into those arguments, ever. I just can’t. I have no room to do that. My teammates know that, and they tease me about it all the time. I mean, it’s cool.
“I mean, I went to Kansas.”
The NFL player who lists Kansas as his alma mater feels almost as real as an actual Jayhawk bird. There are but five Jayhawks listed on active NFL rosters.
In the last five weeks, the University of Kansas football team has won more games than Armstrong won in his three seasons as a Jayhawk.
Kansas was 3-33 in Armstrong’s college career.
KU is 5-0 and ranked 19th in the latest AP Poll. ESPN’s College Game Day will be in Lawrence for the first time ever for KU’s game on Saturday against No. 17 TCU.
Kansas announced that its game against TCU is a sellout; it’s the third straight sellout in as many weeks for college football’s new Alabama.
The Jayhawks just need to sell out for the next 383 games to tie Nebraska’s famed home sellout streak.
This is full-on, biblical, end-of-days type stuff.
“It’s incredible to see,” Armstrong said. “I’ve never seen this. I never experienced anything like this when I was there. I’m like everybody else; I’m happy, and on that bandwagon, too.”
In Armstrong’s career, two of KU’s three wins came against non-FBS level teams; big victories against Rhode Island and Southeast Missouri State.
“The games that I did get to win, you could really feel the energy of actually how it could be,” he said. “But we never really got it. We just got a taste of it, and it was gone.”
Typically, for more than a decade the “taste” of winning with Kansas football lingers for about a good, solid evening. Maybe even into the following morning, depending on how much the person had to drink the previous night amid the celebration.
In Armstrong’s first season in 2015, his team never won.
His first win came in his second year, in the season opener, a 55-6 victory over mighty Rhode Island.
That winning feeling was erased by a nine-game losing streak.
The 2017 season opened with such promise. The Jayhawks defeated Southeast Missouri State, 38-16, but followed by losing 11 straight.
Included in that season-ending 11-game streak were consecutive games against Iowa State and TCU where Kansas lost by a combined score of 88-0.
In between those wins over Rhode Island and SE Missouri State, however, was the keeper.
On Nov. 19, 2016 in Lawrence, Armstrong and Kansas stunned Texas, 24-21, in overtime.
Fans rushed the field. Players put then Kansas coach David Beatty on their shoulders to celebrate a win that essentially ended coach Charlie Strong’s time at Texas.
“I always think about that win,” Armstrong said. “I always thought we could beat them every time we played them. That was such a fun game.”
Armstrong turned pro after the 2017 season, and was picked by the Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2018 NFL Draft.
While he established himself as an NFL player with the Cowboys, his alma mater continued to do what they do best.
No team loses college football games quite like Kansas.
Armstrong’s college coach, Beatty, was fired in November 2018 and replaced by former LSU coach Les Miles.
After accusations of improper behavior with coeds surfaced from his days at LSU, Kansas fired Miles in March of 2021. His two-year tenure in Lawrence included a gaudy 3-18 record, and only one winless season.
Kansas also fired the man who brought him to Lawrence, athletic director Jeff Long.
Miles was replaced by former University of Buffalo coach Lance Leipold, whose résumé was built mostly on the success at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater.
In his first season at Kansas the Jayhawks beat Texas again in overtime, this time in Austin.
Now the team is off to its best start since 2009.
“It looks good. You can’t knock it. I mean, they haven’t lost yet,” Armstrong said. “I don’t think we’ve seen the best of them yet, either.”
It’s Kansas football, so don’t be shocked if this winning feeling ends shortly.
Until it does, expect to hear from every ex-Kansas player and every Kansas fan who normally holes up in the attic during football season.
“Every team we beat, I’m ragging on them,” Armstrong said. “I mean, ‘We beat you all!’ I’m going to take this and run with it.”
Right up until basketball season.
