A 5-foot-11 quarterback for the University of Kansas used to be able to walk around town in relative anonymity. With nearly 3,500 passing yards and an Orange Bowl title, Todd Reesing forever changed what it meant to be the Jayhawks’ signal-caller.

The tiny Texan’s sophomore season stuck a jam in the revolving door under center for Kansas, and now his task is to try and improve on the greatest season in school history. The first step to conquering that obstacle is handling the unfamiliar position of being the unquestioned starter.

“This year, coming in, I’m the returning starter and guys look to me to be the one to lead the offense,” Reesing said. “There’s more responsibility, there’s more people looking up to you and looking to you to be the leader and be the one to take that step forward and work hard.”

Last year the preseason talk about the quarterback position was whether or not Reesing could unseat Kerry Meier. Reesing eventually won the job and after his stellar season was named to the All-Big 12 second team as well as a semifinalist for the Davey O’Brien Award.

This time around the team expectations are heightened and although Reesing said it’s fun not looking over his shoulder, coach Mark Mangino has stressed that handling success can be as tough as handling failure.

“For Todd, the challenge is to be able to manage all this attention that he’s received,” Mangino said. “Everybody in Lawrence, Kansas, wants to say that they know him and that they pal around with him and he’s their buddy.

“I think if he continues to do a good job of managing going from being a player that was not well known, who was competing for a position last year at this time, to being somebody that’s highly respected as a player in our league, that’s the key (to success).”

Life off the field has and will continue to get more difficult for Reesing, who can’t go to the grocery store without attracting a crowd. Reesing said he doesn’t mind most of the time because people just want to wish him good luck and he likes signing autographs for kids. Still, he didn’t mind the time when he could walk around unrecognized.

Life on the field only got better with his celebrity, because as the No. 1 guy Reesing has spent more time understanding the nuances of his top wide receivers. The increased reps have had a positive effect for both sides.

“It helps because we’re able to get the timing down, and we don’t have to worry about the different flaws in a quarterback’s game,” senior wide receiver Dexton Fields said. “Having one quarterback is really what we’ve been looking for ever since I got here.”

Fields added that the reason Reesing accomplished what no other Jayhawk passer in recent history could was his “will to win.”

“He doesn’t have a favorite guy that he throws to. He just does what he has to to win games,” he said.

In fact, Reesing swears that the only stat he ever pays attention to is his team’s number of wins.

“If I throw for 1,200 yards or 4,400, whatever helps us win the most games is what I’m going to do,” Reesing said. “Statistics don’t really mean anything, and if that’s all you care about then something’s wrong.”

Whether he cares or not, Reesing has always had spectacular stats, dating back to high school. A native of Austin, Texas, Reesing earned the Texas 4A Player of the Year as a high school junior and Central Texas Player of the Year as a senior. Still, his hometown Longhorns never gave Reesing a legit opportunity to make the team. On the other hand, Mangino offered him a scholarship the day after the two met.

That’s one reason Reesing has circled Nov. 15 on his calendar, the day Texas comes to Memorial Stadium.

“From a football standpoint it’s just another game on the schedule, I’m supposed to say. But it may have a little something special to me because I have a lot of friends from back home that go to UT and I think my dad has already reserved about 25 to 30 hotel rooms for that game,” he said. “Playing against a team that you grew up in your hometown watching, it means a little something more.”

That will be an emotional game for Reesing, and if things go their way that could be a very meaningful game for the Jayhawks in terms of a Big 12 title. After two years of playing South opponents Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M, Kansas squares off with Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech.

Basically the Jayhawks swapped out the three bottom teams of the South for its three best, and most preseason predictions have them losing one if not all of those match-ups. That’s just fine with Reesing.

“That’s where we want to be, we like to be the underdog,” he said. “We want to be overlooked because it’s a lot more fun playing when people don’t want you to succeed. It’s a little something inside that makes you work that much harder.”

The other factor that’s kept him going in the offseason is that obnoxious little one in the loss column.

“When you’re a game away from playing for a conference championship game or winning the Big 12 North, it sucks,” Reesing said. “I think we used that loss as motivation to get really ready for the Orange Bowl, and we came out in that game really fired up and ready to prove that we deserved to be there. All this talk about us not deserving it was a bunch of baloney.”

Despite its 2007 success and largely because of its difficult schedule, Kansas’ hype level is nowhere near that of Oklahoma, Texas Tech or archrival Missouri. Each of those schools, and their quarterbacks, has been predicted to win the national championship, Heisman Trophy or both.

One successful season didn’t put Kansas on their level in the minds of people outside the program. However, it did wonders for the under-sized, under-recruited but no longer under-the-radar phenom taking snaps for the crimson and blue.

“I’m not looking to get hype or get predicted to do this or that,” Reesing said. “I’m happy with where I am, I have my Orange Bowl ring and it doesn’t really matter what anybody else says. It matters what you do out there on Saturday.”