I was at the KU-Duke game today. 1st time I'd been at the stadium.
The Good- Leipold had his team ready to play after 2 big road wins. No letdown at all. KU came out grinding the ball on the ground and had a turnover early as they were driving for their 2nd score. Then they started mixing in some good play action and misdirection. The RB ran really hard and they wore down Duke. They wore down Duke with a ground game and beat them at times with both the run and pass. In the beginning of the 4th quarter I saw the stat they had 29 rushes and 20 passes, so fairly well balanced with a lean toward the run. Not sure the final stats. Very easy to get in and out of the stadium and out of Lawrence.
The "Meh"- the KU defense did the job, but didn't look "stout" by any means. To their credit they had a couple of nice fourth down stops when they needed them. I don't know enough about the KU players or the Duke offense to make any definitive statements about player talent, scheme, Duke's offensive prowess. Ultimately, the KU defense got stops when they needed and got the ball back to the offense which is more than I could say most of the time for NU.
The Bad- Concessions. They were absolutely unprepared for that type of crowd. Total fail. Took my son to get food with about 8:00 left in the 2nd quarter and we didn't get back to our seats until 1:00 left before the 2nd half kickoff. Hot dogs not ready, out of pretzels, out of chips. Horrible experience. If anyone knows the guy who oversees the guy who runs stadium operations, tell him his ops dude needs to be fired. When the stadium sells out, someone needs to be thinking about what that means, who else needs to know, and what to change. Not a single walk around vendor so everyone in the stadium had to go to a concession stand to get anything. They sell beer and those lines were 3 times as long as the food lines.
Overall good experience, fans were nice, even to some Duke fans in the area. Most I talked to loved Leipold and are very scared NU will steal him.