One good omen for the Kansas University football team can be found in the broadcast booth for Saturday’s 11 a.m. kickoff against South Dakota State.

The Jayhawks are undefeated the past two years in games called by Fox Sports Network duo Brendan Burke and Ben Leber.

Burke and Leber were in the booth for Charlie Weis’ lone Big 12 victory, 31-19 against West Virginia, Nov. 16, 2013. They also caught last season’s 24-10 victory vs. Central Michigan and interim coach Clint Bowen’s 34-14 conquest of Iowa State.

When Burke and Leber visit Lawrence it’s a great football town. The bars are packed. Everybody’s happy. KU is 3-0 with Burke and Leber in the booth, 3-18 the past two seasons without them.

If KU ever ponders cheating to get football recruits, they should save the risk and just buy homes for Burke and Leber, instead of for recruits’ parents.

“We’ve been here for three games and they pulled the goal posts out after two of them,” Burke said. “I’m just expecting the goal posts to come down on Saturday.”

Burke guessed that with the weather looking good, a new head coach in need of support, and it being a season-opener, the crowd might be a big one.

“Right?” he asked.

Not so sure about that. (Forgive his optimism. After all, he’s never seen the Jayhawks lose.)

I asked associate athletics director/public affairs Jim Marchiony how things were looking on the ticket front since it’s Marchiony who relays the crowd estimate from a ticket-office official to Katy Lonergan, director of football communications. Lonergan announces the estimate in the press box, often triggering more laughs than Jerry Seinfeld did on his funniest nights of stand-up comedy.

The estimate aims at tickets sold and not all season-ticket holders use their seats, which some people purchase to improve their points standing toward getting better basketball seats.

Marchiony estimated the number of season tickets sold at 23,000.

It will be interesting to see what sort of crowd shows up to support debuting head coach David Beaty.

“I think it’ll be a good crowd just because David, in my estimation anyway, is doing all the right things in terms of getting out and selling the program the best he can and I think people are excited about him,” Marchiony said. “They know he’s got a building project he’s trying to accomplish and he’s done all the right things: tried hard, met with fans, met with students. He’s done all the right things.”

Winning Saturday would grow the crowd for the Week 2 Memphis game.