Kansas Esports teams prepare for fall season

Olivier Desbois

Kansas esports players are preparing for a new season at their facility inside of KU’s Student Union ahead of their season opening matches against Nebraska, Sept. 22 through 25.The University of Kansas competes in the Power Esports Conference, or PEC, which has leagues for Overwatch 2, Rock League, Valorant, Super Smash Bros and League of Legends. 

Only a handful of players and one or two substitutes make each varsity team. 

“We’ll basically go into every year with the goal of a tryout being that we’re looking to fill like one to three spots, depending on how many players graduated,” Danny O’Connell, KU’s esports program coordinator, said.

A few select players are recruited to play out of high school, and limited scholarship funds are used to retain players who might otherwise transfer to another school.

 “The smaller schools actually have an advantage,” George Ruf IV, a varsity Overwatch 2 player, said. “They’re able to more heavily recruit and throw funds toward it because they aren’t going to be able to compete in traditional sports.”

However, Ruf and most other players at KU hadn’t heard about the University’s esports teams until after they arrived on campus. George usually spends 30 to 40 hours a week playing, and he consistently ranks among the top 500 players in North America. 

“It’s a very tight knit community, I know a lot of other colleges have their rooms separate by game, but specifically that’s something with Kansas esports that we’ve kind of tried to do is, let’s put everybody in one room and get people to know each other,” Ruf IV said.

Communication is key in all esports. Players need to be able to speak concisely and to listen to game audio and their teammates at the same time. Most games have a dedicated coach whose job is mostly focused on fostering teamwork.

“A lot of the time, our coaches are either students or players who are not mechanically as good as our players, but they’re still very knowledgeable in the game, and are good at managing a group of students,”  O’Connell said.

Matches are played online for nine weeks each semester against other PEC schools, with teams for each game playing on a fixed day Monday through Thursday. Since matches are online, good internet and powerful computers are crucial to winning. All connections are wired through ethernet to ensure the best speed and consistency, and much of the program’s funding goes toward computers that can run games smoothly at high frame rates. 

KU esports has grown a lot in the past few years. The university now has club teams for Rainbow Six Siege, Call of Duty, Splatoon 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in addition to club teams for their varsity sports. The program opened an additional room in the Kansas Union this fall to accommodate more games and players.

With limited space and numbers of gaming computers, O’Connell is responsible for deciding which games KU will compete in. Currently, he’s assessing if KU could support a team for Marvel Rivals, a six versus six shooter released last year that has quickly gained popularity.

“We’re always looking at new games, what is popular in the gaming world, what is popular at KU, what games are well supported. These are all things we consider,” O’Connell said.

KU’s season begins this Monday against Nebraska at 7 p.m. If you want to watch KU esports matches, they’ll be streamed on the team’s Twitch channel, and posted to their website.