Blue October

Source: KU Sports

Argh. Texas Tech was an awesome candidate for an upset. This was the conference game I had circled to get the monkey off the Jayhawks back. I even thought that KU had a shot Friday evening, going into Saturday morning. Yes, Tech was unblemished on the year, but outside of a Thursday night home win against TCU, they hadn't been challenged through their first four games. They had tossed SF Austin and Texas State at home, and in front of a pro-Tech crowd in Dallas, the "road" game at SMU was hardly that. You had to figure if KU could get them in a close game outside of the friendly confines of Jones AT&T Stadium, freshman walk-on quarterback Baker Mayfield and head coach Kliff Kingsbury would find themselves in uncharted waters, and that Kansas would expose the reality of some presumably inflated statistics.

And on this cloudy homecoming morning, Kansas got off the blocks well. After a quick first down pass from Mayfield, the Tech offense stalled, and Ben Heeney jumped a route on 3rd and 8 from the TTU 40 to give Kansas the ball and great field position at the opposing 44.

KU made it pretty conspicuous early that they were going to be passing the football today, going out of a shotgun empty back formation, which was certainly against the grain for a team predicated on the rushing attack.

Jake Heaps fond Tony Pierson over the middle, and TP gouged Tech for 28 yards down to the 16. Kansas was feeling pretty good at that moment, but a false start, a minimal gain, an incompletion, and a sack on an attempted Wildcat pass with Michael Cummings, thwarted any hopes of a touchdown. KU settled for 3, and grabbed the early lead on Matthew Wyman's 36 yard field goal.

It was much of the same for Tech on the next possession: a quick first down gainer, followed by 3 unsuccessful plays and a punt.

Kansas took over on their own 21, and promptly went 79 yards in 9 plays, using up 4:03 seconds, capped off by a 25 yard seam pass from Heaps to Jimmay Mundine. Brandon Bourbon had 4 carries for 28 yards, and Tony Pierson had 2 catches for 27, including an acrobatic catch in traffic on a critical 3rd and 12 that kept KU's drive alive. Weis was certainly doing his best to get the ball in his playmaker's hands early and it paid dividends.

Tech went three and out again, and Kansas took over on its own 45 with just 6:25 left in the first quarter.

Kansas punted on a 4th and 1, much to the chagrin of a very enthused and optimistic crowd.

Tech drove almost the entire length of the field, but once they got into the red-zone, the KU defense battened down the hatches and forced a field goal. Ryan Bustin missed his 32 yard field goal attempt, and Kansas although Kansas would go three and out on the ensuing possession, they would escape the first quarter completely unscathed and ahead of the sticks: 10-0.

And that, my friends, was the last time the sun shined on the Hawks. From the 2nd quarter on, the game was particularly blue. Tech found a soft spot on the Kansas defensive line: the cutback run, and ran it over and over and over again. 9 yards. 22 yards. 8 yards. 7 yards. 8 yards. 1 yard. 4 yards. KU stiffened with their backs against the wall once again, but after watching Tech just slice and dice its way up the field unabated, you had to wonder how much longer this bend could hold up before it broke and it opened up the flood gates.

The answer came hastily: not much longer.

After three straight incompletions, Kansas punted and gave the ball back to Tech at the Kansas 42 after a 23 yard punt return by Sadale Foster.

Tech went 42 yards in 8 plays, and Kenny Williams plowed his way into the endzone for the tying score on a 1 yard jaunt on 2nd and goal.

The scoreboard was the only sign that KU was in the game. The crowd was dead, the sideline was stupefied, and Tech was oiled and running smooth as ever.

KU desperately needed a positive play to answer Tech's comeback, but only exacerbated the problem. On the first play of the drive, Cummings was sacked. On the second play, Darrian Miller gained a meager 2 yards, and on the third play, James Sims lost the two humble yards that Miller had gained. The tides were changing quickly, and on a 4th and 13 from their own 16 yard line, punter Trevor Pardula optioned to run a fake punt, but was stopped at the line of scrimmage and forced out of bounds, handing the ball back to Tech after just 1:51 had elapsed.

I don't care for an explanation. There can't be anything that could possibly quell the stupidity involved in that play, so I'd just rather not even try to understand what happened. There is no way around it: that fake punt was absolutely, positively cataclysmic for an already fragile football team. As if Tech's ferocious comeback wasn't already, the egregious mistake was a harbinger of the 54 straight Texas Tech points to come.

Tech scored in 2 plays, and then closed out the half with a field goal. 20-10 at intermission.

KU was still alive, but was on intravenous therapy and quite possibly its death bed. The one glimmer of hope: they were getting the ball to start the half, which in hindsight, wasn't really a glimmer of hope, and more of a bad omen, given the way the offense limped into the locker room.

On the first play of scrimmage to start the second half, Heaps was intercepted by J.J. Gaines, and the Hawks' fate was sealed. It was reminiscent of the Kansas State game in 2011, where KU ended the half with its tail in between its legs, only to give up a kickoff return for a touchdown to Tyler Lockett right out of the break.

In the first quarter, the offense's shortest drive was 9 yards. In the second quarter, it was -3 yards. In the third quarter, it was -10 yards. And in the fourth quarter, it was -12 yards.

KU had four drives in the first quarter, 3 in the second, 5 in the third, and 5 in the fourth.

In the first half, KU had a field goal, touchdown, punt, another punt, a fumble, a TOD (a fake punt on 4th and 13 from their own 16), and a punt.

The second half had a similar tune: Interception, Punt, Punt, TOD, Punt, Fumble, Fumble, a mop-up touchdown, a Fumble, and another Punt.

Although KU held Tech scoreless on the first seven possessions, Tech one-upped KU and held KU scoreless on 11 straight possessions, and 13 of 14 possessions after the 10-0 KU lead. Or did KU do enough on offense to be "held"?

The Kansas defense spent an inordinate amount of plays on the field, thanks in large part to the Kansas offense, but hey, let's not forget the special teams here. KU was successful early in the game for a variety of reasons, but one of them was because of FIELD POSITION: Texas Tech's first 5 possessions all started within their own 25 yard line. They were held to three points. On their next 13 possessions, only 7 of them started within their own 25 yard line. Tech scored 51 points on those 13 possessions.

The Kansas defense is improved, and there are numbers to back up that claim. But not many defenses are going to be successful when they are on the field as much as the Hawks were on Saturday, and especially if they are on the field in poor field position. The offense and special teams did not do them any favors after the first quarter.

The worse news is that Tony Pierson was hurt on his 39 yard highlight catch and run midway through the third quarter with Texas Tech leading 37-10. See, Tony Pierson is the lipstick on the pig, and if this girl has to go without makeup for the next few weeks, things will not be pretty.

Is it too early to start talking about freshman Montell Cozart? No. The answer is no. A quarterback that can keep the offense on the field and the defense off has immeasurable value to this team. If Heaps can't do it, you've got to play what's left in your hand and hope for the best. October is already blue.