Hailey Solomon doesn’t enjoy watching college football. She jokes that she doesn’t understand it at all, either. (That might not have been a joke.) You might have surmised all of this already, considering what you already know about her — that she’s the kind of person who brings her crocheting with her to a live sporting event. But she’d like to confirm anyway.



Saturday’s game against Oklahoma was actually the first Kansas football game Solomon had ever attended. The senior studying civil engineering had only decided to go for one very specific reason.



“One of the most influential and inspiring people in my life is my structural engineering materials professor, Dr. Matt (O’Reilly), who has been a role model and mentor to me for the past three years,” Solomon wrote in an email to The Athletic. She had nominated O’Reilly for an award — the Board of Class Officers H.O.P.E. Award (Honor for an...