X’s 'Jayhawk Lasso' loves Kansas … and BYU?

Take a look at discussions about the Big 12 on X and you’ve likely seen Jayhawk Lasso’s X profile adorned with a profile picture of the Kansas jayhawk sporting a suit, a bunch of posts talking about the upcoming Kansas games and —interestingly — a picture of LaVell Edwards Stadium as his banner photo.

This Kansas fan with over 4,000 followers on X, and seemingly no connection to BYU, has taken a liking to the Cougars and was even feeling conflicted over the most recent football match that led to a Kansas victory. But why?

Lasso — as he asked to be referred to in this story — works in finance at KU and attended the university as a young adult. He grew up a die-hard Kansas fan, even though no one in his family was that crazy into college sports.

“None of my friends growing up — even though I lived with three stepbrothers —were really that crazy into KU. I mean, I'd be the only one watching the basketball games,” Lasso said.

He’d often sit alone watching the game, invested in his team’s performance. The others just didn’t care as much as he did.

“I remember one year I actually cried when they lost at Arizona and I think it was the Elite Eight and I mean every kid goes through that moment their favorite team loses, and you know, it’s sad. It’s tough,” Lasso said.

One of Lasso's best memories came when he got to go to the Orange Bowl in Miami to watch 11-1 Kansas face off against 11-2 Virginia Tech.

“I drove down with my cousin and his girlfriend. We drove 26 hours from Lawrence all the way to Miami. It was pretty wild,” Lasso said.

Kansas won the rainy game 24-21, and Lasso even got to sit behind the family of future NFL cornerback Aqib Telib who played for the Jayhawks and got a pick-six in the game.

Lasso’s X journey began in June of 2023 and not because he wanted to be a big hit online. He just wanted to keep up on conference realignment.

“I didn't have a Twitter (X), and all this news was popping up with the Pac-12,” Lasso said. And I just got tired of trying to search on Twitter. When you don't have a Twitter account, it's actually very difficult. I just wanted to keep updated on that stuff. It was going crazy. And honestly, I was concerned for KU, because if the Big 12 were to collapse, KU’s not necessarily a big name, other than basketball, and there's just no guarantee that they were gonna land in a safe spot, so I was kind of concerned.”

This engagement led Lasso to get “defensive” for the Big 12. He felt like they were getting lots of disrespect.

“I just felt inclined to be a Big 12 supporter. I just voiced my opinion and it just got to the point where I just kept going with it, you know?” Lasso said.

Conference realignment shook everything up. BYU along with three AAC schools and, later, four Pac-12 schools ended up joining the Big 12. That’s when BYU came into Lasso’s life.

“It started when Utah (fans were) trashing the Big 12,” Lasso said. “So I started making fun of Utah and the Pac-12. So BYU fans, obviously, since I'm making fun of Utah, they're interested. They're like, ‘Oh yeah, let's see what he's saying about Utah.’”

BYU fans ballooned Jayhawk Lasso’s following and he liked what he saw when they came to visit Lawrence when the two teams played in football in 2023.

“I kind of got the vibe from BYU and I knew how to treat them. (They’re) very respectful,” Lasso said. “Oftentimes you have these burners from different schools and they're just a lot, you know? Very vulgar. Some of the stuff they tweet out they think is funny and it's just not funny. And so I didn't want to approach it that way. I wanted to be funny. I wanted to make it to where both KU and BYU would think it was funny. I didn't want to be offensive. It's my approach, and it did really well. And I got a bunch of followers there."

The good vibes between Lasso and BYU culminated with Lasso gaining a follower from BYU’s mascot Cosmo the Cougar.

“It was kind of a joke thing, where I was like, all right, if Cosmo follows me, then my BYU fandom is gonna be complete,” Lasso said. “And a couple days later he retweeted it on his account and said today's the day. … It was actually super cool.”

Lasso hopes to visit BYU sometime during this coming basketball season, when the Jayhawks come to face the Cougars. Meeting Cosmo, eating Cougar tails, seeing the Roc,and of course meeting as many of the fans as possible are all on his bucket list.

“I think this whole Jayhawk Lasso thing says more about BYU than it does about me,” Lasso said. “It just shows how good BYU people are. And (they) really converted me into a big fan, not because of what I was tweeting, not because of whatever I'm doing on Twitter. It's just because BYU fans are just very likable. They're very respectful. They're very fun and just great people.”