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| Source: KU Sports |
Outside of the 2015 season (what many might say was avoided felicitously), I've been writing about KU football since 2011 in some capacity or another. Beginning my freshman year of college, I created this blog and maintained it for three seasons. Three long, long seasons. My senior year of college, I accepted a beat and column position with the University Daily Kansan, and wrote there. For another long season. Although to be fair, it had some nice moments sprinkled in. Of late, it's been en vogue to poke fun of KU Football, borderline cliche. I'll stay away from this as best I can, but KU football is rarely short comedic material (see end of post).
My time with the Kansan gave me an up close look at the program. I spent a good amount of time at the Anderson complex interviewing players and coaches alike. I broke Charlie Weis's firing--a front-page story-- and David Beaty's hiring. At his introductory press-conference, Beaty shook my hand and thanked me for my work. To a no-name student reporter. The guy is genuine. If given the proper time for appraisal, he's going to do just fine. I stand by that.
After a year away from sports writing (2015), I'm back. Good for you, Dan, you're saying. Want a cookie? However, this story is not about me and never has been, and from a page viewership statistics perspective, it's a good thing it is not. No surprise to you, KU football will keep chugging along whether I write or not, so long as the donors still see it fit to keep throwing a sinking ship life-jackets. The point is, I'd like for you to know that this page is alive once again. Maybe in direct parallel with the program it seeks to cover. Help me keep the conversation on KU football going in the comment section.
Since I last wrote (a preview for the 2013 Iowa State game in which Kansas would lose 34-0), in many ways, not much has changed. In other ways, much has changed. On a surface glance, KU's record has been consistently bad. You can call them just about whatever you'd like, but inconsistent is unfair to their legacy.
While covering the team on this blog, Kansas limped its way to a 6-28 record, including just one conference win. To wrap up the remainder of the 2013 season that I opted not to cover (for academic and growing apathetic reasons), KU would lose to aforementioned Iowa State and then Kansas State by a combined 65-10. As I stepped away from the blog, the losing did not stop. In fact, the new Kansas outdid the old. From 2014-2015, Kansas went 3-21, including its low watermark win-less 2015 campaign, residue from Charlie Weis's time at the helm.
But as I also said, so much has changed for this program, beginning and basically ending with head coach David Beaty. Saturday, Beaty collected his first victory as head coach of the program. It came in year two, yes, and against an opponent Kansas forked out $500,000 to play, no less, but it's quite apparent that the KU football arrow, which has been downward trending since 2009, is beginning to point where we'd like it to. The exact trajectory of that arrow, though, is still to be determined.
Dating back to when he was hired, the wins have been hard to come by for the Texas native Beaty. And if we're being honest with ourselves, they will continue to be hard to come by for him. The fact remains that Kansas is still behind the eight-ball when it comes to scholarship athletes. After netting a positive fifteen scholarship players within the last year, Kansas is still short around ten to fifteen scholarship players. Furthermore, the team is young.
It's a good young, though. Saturday, in a 55-6 romp of lowly Rhode Island, Beaty and his Jayhawks showed fans that it is closing the gap on the Big 12 conference at the skill positions. Wide receivers Steven Sims (So.) and Texas A&M transfer LaQuiviante Gonzalez (Jr.) both had good nights. Sims caught five passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns, and Gonzalez contributed 7 for 78 and a touchdown. Sims, heralded for his work ethic, and Gonzalez for his cat-like quickness, give Kansas some weapons to match scores with opponents. In a Big 12 that considers 30-point games defensive struggles, this is essential.
Ke'aun Kinner, one of the few senior contributors for this team, continues to dazzle with spins and downhill running. Saturday against the Rams, the second-year running back carried for 69 yards on just 7 carries. The short of it is that Kansas needs this desperately. It must run the football effectively.
I take it Beaty used the Rhode Island game as an audition of sorts for junior quarterback Montell Cozart and sophomore Ryan Willis. Carter Stanley also saw minutes, but his lack of game-action all but eliminates him from the early-season race. My guess is that Montell starts next week again, and Willis comes in to change the pace as we saw in week one. Cozart threw for 199 yards and 3 touchdowns on 18-25 with one interception. Willis was equally as efficient, if not more so, going 7-for-9 for 144 and two touchdowns. Windows will shrink and they'll have less time to sit and assess downfield as the weeks go by.
Continuing on the theme of talented youth but on defense, sophomore defensive tackle Daniel Wise picked up where he left off. After packing on considerable good mass in the offseason, the big man tallied five total tackles and two quarterback hurries. If I were playing Kansas, I'd think it wise to keep eyes on No. 96 in blue. The rest of the defensive line needs to follow his lead to help prevent senior safety Fish Smithson from leading the nation in tackles per game again. A healthy Dorance Armstrong should help that cause. We want those tackles to be made a little closer to where the ball is snapped, not fifteen to twenty yards into the secondary.
On into the secondary, seniors Marnez Ogletree and Bazie Bates caught my eye the most. Ogletree stayed step-for-step with his man and made a nice play on a deep ball. Bates chipped in an acrobatic interception.
There's only so much that anybody can really glean from a game like this one. That's why I'm curtailing the game recap. Rhode Island likely put up less resistance for KU than its scout team. But an early area of concern for me is on the line of scrimmage. It appeared the further away you went from the trenches (the wide receivers, running backs, linebackers and defensive backs), the more noticeable the gap in talent was between the two teams. Kansas was simply more athletic and skilled on the perimeter. But things got a little hairy between the tackles. URI was able to run the ball against the Jayhawks front seven to the tune of 170 yards on 40 carries. The Kansas ground game also had fits and starts from time to time. Freshman Khalil Herbert had trouble getting going, averaging just 3.8 yards on 4 carries, and Arkansas transfer Denzell Evans was limited to 2.7 on 9. A lot goes into this, obviously. The young backs may not be hitting the right holes, but at the same time, the holes have got to be there, and often they were not.
Next week's game against Ohio will be a better barometer. But my early forecast is that the passing game will be a few steps ahead of the running game on both sides of the football.
I can't end this post without talking about what took place after the clock wound down to three zeroes. And that doesn't just include a student field-storming in a game against a 1-11 FCS opponent in which the line was 29 points in KU's favor. No bueno. But that also includes an emotional David Beaty as he addressed media inside the Anderson complex.
That being said, it does begin with an all too Kansas football moment in which the fans rushed the field following the win. This prompted the public address announcer to reason with the mob as best he could, "for the safety of all involved, including yourselves, and for the respect of this program, we encourage you to leave the field. This is a new era of Kansas football, an era in which you should expect to win. The classiest way to celebrate is off the field and away from the goalposts."
I'm with him. And so were many of the other attendees, who rained boos on the trespassers. I didn't boo, though. It's hard to boo and laugh simultaneously.
All things considered, this is the state of the program right now. Maybe the simple fact that the goalposts remained upright is an encouraging sign.
Lastly, an emotional Beaty has me a little emotional. I remain an objective critic of this team. I think it's my job to keep my integrity. To keep you reading. But when you see someone moved to tears because they've finally tasted a little success after so many months of unrewarded hard work, that's a human moment. Good for you, Coach. Stay after it. Even through the impending losses and blowouts. You'll have a crowd worth storming the field in a few years if you do. Maybe by that point there will no longer be reason to storm. In Beaty we trust.
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