In big matchup, KU Jayhawks women’s soccer hosts defending national champ Thursday
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- Kansas hosts No. 2 Florida State Thursday in a key early-season matchup.
- FSU brings a 12-game win streak and tenacious defense with no goals allowed in 2025.
- Coach Lie views the game as a resume-building RPI boost and high-stakes test for KU.
Florida State, the defending NCAA women’s soccer champion and current No. 2-ranked team in the country per Top Drawer Soccer, will meet undefeated and unranked Kansas in a marquee early-season match at 7 p.m. Thursday at Rock Chalk Park.
The Seminoles, who are tied for sixth with Notre Dame in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25, have not allowed a goal yet this season in blanking Florida (5-0) and FIU (2-0).
Overall, FSU — which returns eight of 11 starters from last year’s roster — has won 12 straight games, averaging more than three goals per outing during that stretch. FSU is 27-0-3 in regular-season nonconference contests since the middle of the 2019 non-league slate after a 5-0-1 mark in 2024 and 2-0 record this campaign.
“There’s only so many Florida States in this world. They’re probably pound-for-pound the best team in the country,” second-year KU coach Nate Lie said of FSU, which won national titles in 2014, 2018, 2021 and 2023.
“I think they’re certainly the most fully stocked in an attacking capacity. They’re pedigreed. They’re probably the deepest team they’ve had this year. It’s a different challenge.”
The Jayhawks, listed second in the “others receiving votes” category in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25, enter with a 3-0-1 record following Lie’s debut season at KU — in which the Jayhawks won the Big 12 postseason tournament before falling in the first round of the NCAA tourney.
“One of the things I want our team to understand is we’re a good team and we are,” Lie said. “I think a lot of how we’re built is to deal with the best teams.
“It is tricky when if you play this game 10 times, you’re not winning five. That’s OK. That’s OK. It’s something we can’t run from. It’s something that shouldn’t demotivate us, because it’s not going to be zero either. And we have to lean into that one, two, three, whatever it may be.
“The only way that we give ourselves a chance is that we have to believe. We have to be willing to sacrifice and go deeper than them. The shared suffering has to be something that doesn’t scare us. Because one of the things that is true to our identity is when we’re playing well, we tend to be on the front foot and dictate the game.”
The Jayhawks, who are hoping for a crowd that rivals the school-record home crowd of 2,514 for a 1-0 loss to Kansas State on Oct. 6, 2017, are sponsoring a “Pack the Park” promotion for Thursday’s game.
“We hope people come to Rock Chalk Park to watch us play. We hope that we represent the program well. We hope we compete well,” Lie said. “The final score … when you play some someone like this, you can’t base all success off that. But we want to go out there to compete, play well, show our identity.
“When we’re playing our best, what they’re going to find is a double team or triple team if they hold onto the ball too long. And so that’s how I want Thursday night to feel, is that no matter how the game is going back and forth, it feels like we’re closing gaps really quickly. It feels like any time Florida State player has the ball for any kind of extended amount of time, they’re dealing with two or three Jayhawks, and if so, I think we could look at them right in the eye and see how it goes.”
KU is 0-2 all time against No. 2-ranked teams, with both of those games played on the road. The Jayhawks fell to No. 2 Oklahoma State 5-1 on Sept. 23, 2011 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and 6-0 to No. 2 West Virginia on Oct. 16, 2015, in Morgantown, W.Va.
The highest ranked opponent KU has defeated is No. 6 Texas A&M. KU tripped the Aggies, 1-0, on Oct. 17, 2008 in Lawrence.
The highest ranked opponent KU has beaten in Rock Chalk Park (which opened in 2014), is No. 7 USC. KU stopped the Trojans, 2-1, on Sept. 3, 2017.
Under second-year KU coach Lie, the Jayhawks are 2-1 against ranked teams. KU upended No. 17 Texas Tech, 2-1, in a Big 12 tourney semifinal then stopped No. 7 TCU, 1-0, in the finals last postseason in Kansas City before falling to No. 21 St. Louis, 1-0, in the first round of the NCAAs.
“I do want them to understand you only have so many shots at games like this,” Lie said. “Me as a coach, if you could pull off something like this, it’s one you’ll remember for a long time. The few opponents that we’ve played that had kind of this weight behind them, I remember coaching against them and what it felt like for 90 minutes.”
Lie, who was head coach at Xavier seven seasons prior to taking the KU job, led the Musketeers to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments (2019-23) and was Big East coach of the year in 2019, 2021 and 2023. Xavier earned a top 30 RPI ranking in each of his last three seasons, becoming one of 12 programs nationally to achieve that feat.
He said win or lose, this game figures to help KU’s RPI rating.
“We want to play in the NCAA Tournament. That is a goal. In order to do that, you’ve got to win games, but you also have to play a schedule that sets you up for success, to some extent. And you know, part of that is this RPI ranking,” Lie said. “It’s not that complicated. If you if you want to have a good RPI, you’ve got to play teams that win a lot of games, then you have to win a lot of those games. And so we were looking for teams that do well in their conference.
“We want to make victories feel real, so that we can learn real lessons from them like this Florida State game. I don’t want it to feel this way in any extent, but there is a little bit of a no lose situation that RPI wise, we’re going to be fine, right? I think they (Seminoles) are going to take care of business the rest of the year (and have strong RPI). But it’s also a darn huge opportunity at a high level to make a statement and put something on the resume. These are games that we should win at some point, sooner than later, or at least be able to go toe to toe and believe you can win.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 4:22 PM with the headline "In big matchup, KU Jayhawks women’s soccer hosts defending national champ Thursday."
