There's a Snake in KU's Boot

Source: KU Sports

The Kansas Jayhawks lead the country and conference in many categories this season. The team has the best 3rd down defense in the Big 12. On a weekly basis, it maintains its NCAA top-10 tackles for loss statistic. Dorance Armstrong registered his 5th straight game with a sack. These are things to hang your hat on. But including the 3 it lost Saturday, the Jayhawks continue to be the country's best at giving the ball away (25 in 6 games), and KU continues to kill its good efforts with costly miscues. Throughout the early afternoon, Kansas was within striking distance of the Oklahoma State Cowboys 5-2 (3-1), but costly turnovers inflated the defeat, 44-20, as David Beaty now falls to 1-18 as head coach.

Over Before it Began

Source: KU Sports

Like many of the KU offensive plays called on Saturday, this game was over before it began. It's not a good sign when a writer throws his hands up before he's out of the first paragraph. But if you watched the game on Saturday, 49-7 Baylor, then maybe you can help me out: where do I go with this story? Now hear me out: there are some 49-7 games that could fill a few pages and keep the modest fan at least mildly interested. But this 42-point shellacking left no doubt in anybody's mind on how night and day the two programs are from one another in development, depth, and talent.

Young Jayhawks Gaining Ground on Big 12

Source: KU Sports

For what so often feels like a 10,000 piece puzzle, the edges are starting to come together for KU Football.

Six deciding seconds remaining, senior Matthew Wyman faced a 54-yard field goal attempt, the difference between victory over the 3-2 (1-1) TCU Horned Frogs and defeat. Restated: the game was in question on its final play when many believed it would be over by halftime. On a sun-bathed fall Saturday in Lawrence, Kansas was within its kicker's range of an upset in which Vegas spotted Kansas 30 points, which is how I choose to lead the blog this week following heartbreak.

While the attempt missed right, and Kansas lost yet again, those who follow the program close enough can see the progress. In a way, it's nice to feel heartbreak again. Call it what you will, but a legitimate chance to win, in itself, is a win for 2016 Kansas football, a team that tries to climb its way out of a hole that's been excavated the past seven years by those preceding it. On Saturday, we saw not only that the program stopped the digging--they've set the shovel aside--but it's also beginning it's gradual ascent out of ineptitude on the backs of one of the league's best defenses, a coaching staff that is getting its players to buy in, and an offense that could be decent by year's end. It'll be a long climb, but it's shorter today than it was yesterday. And the next question is whether we'll be able to say that tomorrow. In a one-point loss, Kansas looked better than a good football team. The kids are young, they're tough, and they've bought in to David Beaty.

Growing Pains

Source: KU Sports

It has become the norm-- or been the norm for the better part of seven seasons, rather-- when following a 36 point loss, a Kansas football fan pores through stat lines to mine out positives. And that's what I'm about to do now. Re-reading that last sentence, I sit in a 30-year old wooden chair (a chair that saw some decent KU football for a brief stretch and a lot of bad for a much, much longer stretch) with subpar back-support that will probably manifest itself in 30-years, punching away at my laptop wondering whether I'm putting my free-time to its best use. My team lost by five touchdowns and I'm hunched here writing too many words that can essentially be summed up as such: "hey, we suck, but tonight we outperformed my expectations."