Kansas City, Missouri — Like the rest of his Kansas teammates, KU linebacker Taiwan Berryhill Jr., was certainly frustrated by the Jayhawks’ fourth consecutive loss, which came via a 38-27 loss to TCU at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday.
But unlike the others, Berryhill had a recent feel-good memory to fall back on after it was over.
Recent, as in a little more than 12 hours earlier.
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See, Friday night, the fifth-year senior from New Orleans was back home in Louisiana for his mother Maria’s wedding.
It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony at New Orleans’ famed City Park, with scenes of moss hanging from the trees, picturesque walking bridges, lush gardens and a gorgeous fall night creating the perfect setting.
It also made Berryhill’s ability to be with both his family and his team one heck of a challenge. But there was no way the linebacker was going to miss either one.
“(I was) kind of salty I couldn't go out with them after, but it is what it is,” Berryhill said after Saturday’s game. “I knew I had to be here.”
So, he was.
Not without a little finagling and lots of extra stress.
When the wedding was planned, Berryhill booked a roundtrip flight on Southwest Airlines that was supposed to take him directly from New Orleans to Kansas City on Saturday morning and arrive at 12:10 p.m.
But then the 2:30 p.m. kickoff time was announced and the plans changed.
“We thought it was good, but then the time was announced and coach called me and said, ‘Hey, I know you’ve got a flight, but just with how the time sets up and schedule works, we might need you to come in a little earlier just so we have more room for error.’”
No problem. The new flight, which now included a short layover in Houston, was to leave New Orleans around 5:00 a.m. and arrive in Kansas City around 9:30.
Add in the stress of oversleeping, the potential weather impact of Hurricane Helene in the area and any number of other things that can — and often do — go wrong or cause delays on any trip, and you’re looking at a fingers-crossed, hope-for-the-best sort of scenario.
“I went to sleep with the lights on last night,” Berryhill told R1S1 Sports in a brief interview outside the Kansas locker room after Saturday’s game. “I didn’t even turn off the lights. On the Uber to the airport, I was just like, ‘Man, I don’t know how we’re gonna get this done, but we’re gonna get it done.’”
That type of determination — along with Berryhill’s insistence on being there for his mom — meant a lot to KU coach Lance Leipold and KU AD Travis Goff, who spent more than eight years at Tulane, building his own resume and getting to know New Orleans culture, as well.
“He was up (before) 4:30 this morning to be on a plane to get back here and went out and played the whole game,” Leipold said after the loss. “Our guys are doing everything possible to try to be here.”
Added Goff, who spoke briefly with Berryhill after Saturday’s loss about the wedding and his family and the wild travel day: “For a man like that, who’s been on this journey with us for five years now and just continued to build and mature and grow, to be able to go down there and celebrate his mom who he’s got an incredible relationship with is pretty special.”
“And he came out here and gave every ounce that he had in the tank, off fumes and 2 hours of sleep and was all over the field. So, we’re proud of Taiwan and what he means for the program. There’s definitely some perspective there.”
As for how he was able to do any of it — on the day, he finished with 7 tackles, 6 solo stops and 1 tackle for loss — Berryhill credited his teammates.
“Once I got around the guys and they poured their energy into me, it just got me going,” he said.
In fact, he might’ve been a little too amped up. Running on adrenaline has a way of doing that to a person.
“Things started feeling normal during pregame when I got around my linebacker brothers,” he told R1S1 Sports. “I was telling them, I’m ready, I’m ready, I need to lock in. And they was like, ‘Nah, you don’t need to lock in, you just need to calm down. We know you know what you need to do. So, take a deep breath, go out there and slow it down for yourself and it’s gonna happen.’ And it did.”
Before any of that, though, there was a fair amount of atypical prep involved.
Berryhill waited until after Thursday’s practice to fly home.
“I didn’t want to miss practice,” he said. “I wanted to get the full week of install in and take everything they could throw at me so I could be as ready as possible.”
And then, during the trip, he found quiet moments to steal a peek at the game plan or watch film.
That included in the Uber on the way to the airport Saturday morning and again on his way from KCI to the team hotel, and on the plane, as well.
“As soon as I sat down at my gate, I cracked open the playbook with every install they threw at me and then watched a few plays and fell asleep,” he said. “I usually watch film at home on the TV, but in this situation I only had my phone, so I was just I was just straining, looking at my phone, just trying to take advantage of every moment I got. Because I knew as soon as I got back it was go time.”
Go time on the football field became a lot easier to manage because Berryhill knew that go time for his mother’s wedding with her new husband David Jones was made even sweeter because her son was there.
“I’ve been knowing him for the majority of my life and this was a long time coming,” Berryhill said of her mom’s new husband. “When she told me that he proposed, I was like, ‘Oh. OK. Finally!’”
Being there to celebrate with both of them meant as much to Berryhill as it did to his mother. And knowing how much it meant to her played a big role in his appreciation of the whole experience.
“I knew what me being there meant to her right off the bat, as soon as I got home Thursday,” he said. “The moment she saw me, she just expressed how glad she was that I made it and she said, ‘It feels complete now.’”
Her appreciation was still there in a big way after her son’s two car rides, two flights and early-morning adventure that wound up working out great.
“I talked to her when I landed in KC and she just told me how happy she was and how glad she was that I made it to the wedding and made it back here today. It was great. And it was a beautiful wedding.”
“This is like the most awkward pregame ritual I’ve ever had,” he added. “But it’s a funny story to tell.”
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