Getting to know U(niversities)- Current Big 12 Members: The University of Kansas

A new conference home for TCU means that there are a whole host of new teams to be aware of. Some of them we are well acquainted with, others we've managed to face only once, but for all of them it's a good time to get reacquainted and maybe learn a new thing or two about our new and old conference mates. For that, Frogs O' War is proud to present the facts, stats and trivia of our big 12 brethren. Make the jump if you will, and see what there is to be seen about the first school to be profiled: The University of Kansas.

Tale of the Tape: University of Kansas Jayhawks

Location: Lawrence, Kansas

Stadium: Memorial Stadium (Dedicated to Kansas Students who died in World War I)

Overall Record: 573-570-58. About as close to a .500 overall record as you can get.

Championships: Six conference championships (One Western Interstate Football Association, one Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, one Big Six, three Big Eight)

Conference History: Founding member of the Western Interstate Football Association in 1892-1897, founding member of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association/Big Six/Big Eight (1907-1998), founding member of the Big 12 (1999-present).

Traditions: Rock Chalk Jayhawk chant, removing former rivals from their fight song if they leave the conference, they also wave like wheat, rather than like a wave.

Rivals: Kansas State Wildcats in the Sunflower State Showdown. They used to have one of the most heated (and second longest running) rivalries in all of college football with the Missouri Tigers, but since Mizzou has decided to seek a new conference home Kansas has expressed zero desire to play them again. A similar fate befell the Kansas-Nebraska series, so don't expect the Jayhawks to waffle on that resolve soon. So Kansas is in the market for new rivals, which is probably why Weis is making comments about practicing field goal celebrations after beating us.

You may remember them from such TCU games as: TCU has played Kansas a pretty decent number of times for a school we never shared a conference with. The frogs and jayhawks have played twenty eight games with the frogs winning at a 2:1 clip- 16-8 with four ties thrown in. Hopefully the frogs will be able to improve that ratio in conference play, as well as snap the current three game losing streak we have to Kansas from 95-97 seasons (the frogs last win was in '94). The last time the frogs and jayhawks played annually was actually a two decade stretch from 1944-1964 with TCU winning 15 of the games compared to three wins for Kansas.

Have they been looking at other conferences?: Only to avoid being left out of a major conference. When Missouri looked like the sure bet for Big Ten expansion and the Pac 10 were planning on taking the southern half of the Big 12 Kansas tried to shoehorn its way into the Big Ten by pointing out the qualities they were superior to Missouri in, then made eyes at the ACC and Big East as Texas A&M threatened to upend the conference this last year. With all that said, Kansas is probably more invested in the survival of the Big 12 than any of the other big name teams (we all know Baylor would be slumming it in the Sun Belt if the Big 12 broke up) and they don't seem interested in rocking the boat.

What else is "need to know" about the University of Kansas?: They're KU, not UK (that's Kentucky), and they're going to absolutely hammer us in basketball season. If we beat Kansas one time in the next five years, give Trent Johnson a five year extension right then. That said, they aren't generally very good at football, and fired an overweight but highly successful coach for being abrasive to players, hired one who seemed over his head outside of the MAC, then brought in an overweight but not very successful coach who is abrasive to everyone. Best of luck to 'em.