MAC-trucked

Source: KU Sports

Saturday afternoon, Kansas had its teeth kicked in for the first quarter and a half of football. Trailing 25-0 to the 0-1 Ohio Bobcats at home, the Jayhawks would show enough resolve to make the game competitive--trimming the lead to within 14, 28-14 (and then within 10, 31-21 a few minutes later). But ultimately, when given a chance to regain possession on a punt down two scores, a second muffed punt by La'Quivionte Gonzalez, recovered by the Bobcats on the Kansas 10 yard-line, among a litany of other mental mistakes, all but sealed its fate. The hole manifested by KU miscues wound up too big to climb out. And the Jayhawks missed on a monumental opportunity, falling to 1-1 on the season as they head for Memphis, Tennessee to take on the Tigers, KU's first opportunity to lay the 38-game road losing streak to rest.

To begin with, the Ohio Bobcats are the better program--as if Saturday provided insufficient evidence of that point. The perennial MAC contenders have been better than Kansas for the past seven years--each of which, the Bobcats have gone bowling. Furthermore, head coach Frank Solich knows football. He's been coaching for about as long as David Beaty has been alive, and it appeared Solich was toying with Beaty in the early going, finding holes in KU at will. Lastly, the culture which surrounds Pedens Stadium in Athens, Ohio is one that engenders winning; the same cannot be said for Kansas. So although Kansas has Big 12 athletes (not in great numbers), an Ohio win is not all too surprising.

But Saturday, the Jayhawks, high off their 55-6 win over the Rams of Rhode Island, actually entered the game as 2 1/2 point favorites--favorites in back-to-back weeks for the first time since 2012. And you could understand the rationale behind the money. When looking at the matchups along the perimeter, Kansas would trot out athletes comparable to, if not better than, Ohio. And in all actuality, this was the case on Saturday (when Kansas played to this strength, which was shockingly less than anticipated). KU enjoyed explosive touchdowns of 99, 74, and 22 yards. Each of which came from plays in which Kansas got the ball to its playmakers in space against lesser talented Ohio defensive backs and specialists. The first, a 99-yard kickoff return by Gonzalez, which got the KU team a jolt, trailing 25-7. The second two: deep passes to Steven Sims against a porous Ohio secondary. On missed opportunities, such as an early deep ball to Gonzalez, which air-mailed him by about five yards (the same distance of separation he had from the Ohio defender), Kansas was getting open. The problem was, the Jayhawks gameplan did not take full advantage of this edge for four quarters.

So for the majority of the first half, Kansas played into the teeth of Ohio's strengths. On offense, they tried to beat Ohio's vaunted front-seven, by running up the gut (including in its own end-zone, which gave Ohio 2 points) and throwing the ball laterally, which allowed Ohio's linebackers and lineman the chance to swarm to the football. Cumulatively, this offensive strategy amounted to 21-yards of first-half offense. In the second half, the gameplan adjusted, and Montell Cozart finished with a respectable 198 yards of passing (17-of-24). Still, this is cause for concern. David Beaty runs the offense, and it looked as if he hadn't done his homework for the first 30-minutes.

On defense, Kansas was routinely out of position in the first half. The old football adage that it takes eleven guys doing their job to play good defense held true. On several occasions, Kansas found itself playing with just ten. Ohio quarterback Greg Windham ran wild thanks to defensive ends over-pursuing plays, and safeties not meeting blockers as close to the line as possible. Losing contain on a mobile quarterback, Kansas suffered 146 yards to Windham on 16 carries. Ohio would finish with 496 total yards, 359 of which came in the first half of play.

Aside from the brief flicker of hope from Gonzalez's kick-return, the mood inside Memorial Stadium was dour as the band filed onto the field for the halftime rituals. Quite simply, the fundamentals of football were absent from a team that cannot afford to play dumb and fundamentally unsound: poor tackling, blocking, and failing to do what has been assigned. David Beaty will preach the three staples of turning the program around ad nauseum: playing smart, playing physical, and winning the hidden-third (special teams). Throughout the first half, KU not only fell short of the mark on all three, they were being beaten soundly in all three departments.

KU was 0-8 on third downs, they ran just 44 plays to Ohio's 93, held possession for just 16:22 to Ohio's 43:38, and lost the turnover battle 3-1 (with two muffed punts). KU committed two personal foul penalties: one of which came on a 3rd and 11.

But I can't turn my nose to the areas that KU showed signs of progress. For one thing, it's been a while since Kansas has dealt with a game following a win. This is part of the rebuild: learning how to deal with success. Kansas looked dead in the water down 25-0, but it dug deep and didn't quit.

A good Ohio offense was held to nine second-half points (three field goals), more impressive considering Ohio had starting field position of: OH 21, KU 10, OH 30, OH 41, KU 29, OH 14, and OH 35. Kansas even came away with a red-zone interception by Fish Smithson late in the third quarter to keep the comeback attempt alive.

After doing just about whatever it liked in the first two quarters, Ohio was held to just 66 yards of total offense in the third quarter, and 71 yards in the fourth. Defensive lineman Daniel Wise accounted for four tackles for a loss. There was no reason one would think Kansas had a fighting chance of making it a game again, but sure enough, Kansas chipped away to within striking distance. This speaks to the potential explosiveness of Beaty's air-raid offense, which found the end-zone just 23 seconds into the second half, and again just about three minutes later. Slowly but surely, you can begin to see some pieces coming together. Cozart looked in-sync with his wide receivers, and the offensive line showed some fight after getting whipped for the better part of the afternoon.

This week, if Kansas wants any kind of a shot against a strong Memphis team, it'll need to clean up the mess from last week (unforced errors and trying to be a hero: playing out of position and trying to do too much on punt returns). It will take four quarters of effort inside a most-likely rainy Liberty Bowl stadium. It'll also probably take an avoidance of bad fortune, which does not often befall KU football.

The disappointing outfall of the Ohio game was that Kansas played poorly for a half. They looked unprepared and poorly coach. The reason for optimism, though, comes from the fact that Kansas made things interesting quickly, and showed a little grit in the 37-21 loss, when so many Kansas teams before would have thrown in the towel. They're young. They haven't won much at this level. Let's see what they've learned.

The question remains: where do they go from here?