Sunday, August 31, 2008
All it took was two plays - a 75-yard punt return for a touchdown and a 47-yard field goal - for Jayhawk nation to rest easy.
Two positions and players that had Jayhawk fans intrigued going into Saturday's season opener against FIU, Daymond Patterson and Alonzo Rojas teammed up to comfort Jayhawk fans and propel Kansas to a 40-10 victory over FIU.
Freshman punt returner Daymond Patterson streaks down the sideline en-route to a punt return for a touchdown during the second quarter of Saturday's game.
At punt returner, the true freshman Patterson’s debut was a good one, returning four punts for a total of 135 yards. After almost breaking free on his first two returns, Patterson took his third punt return of the night 75 yards into the end zone for his first collegiate touchdown – skying over a falling Ashlyn Parker of FIU near the 15 yard-line en-route to the end zone.
“That was pretty awesome, I’ve never seen anything like that,” running back Jocque Crawford said of Patterson’s high-flying leap. “But we’ve been expecting him to make a good play ever since he came in so he just proved himself tonight.”
And at kicker, the Jayhawks were welcomed by the debut of Alonzo Rojas, who had been signed to be the team’s punter but has also taken over kickoff and long field goal duties in the past few weeks.
In addition to three punts that averaged 46 yards, Rojas hit two field goals, one of which was a long 47-yard attempt early in the second quarter that put Kansas up 17-0 and brought a big fist pump from the Bowling Green transfer.
“It felt good because going out there, everyone’s expecting ‘he’s probably not going to make this, he’s a punter, he just got the job,’” Rojas said. “I wanted the crowd to know that I’m here, and I’m here to help out the team and I felt like I hit that ball pretty good.”
A Memorial Stadium record 52,112 fans watched as quarterback Todd Reesing attempted 52 passes, completing 37 of them for 256 yards and three touchdowns.
All three touchdowns went to sophomore Dezmon Briscoe, who had nine catches for 55 yards on the night. It was the second time in his brief Kansas career that he scored three touchdowns in a single game, matching the three he had in last year’s 76- 39 rout of Nebraska.
“That is what Briscoe can bring to the table for us,” said Reesing. “He is a tremendous athlete and he has a great feel for going up and catching the ball. He’s got a feel for how to get open, just like all of our other receivers do. “
While the Kansas passing game excelled, the running game struggled a bit. An ankle injury limited Crawford to just 32 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries and junior Jake Sharp had only 29 yards on nine carries. Angus Quigley, who came in during the fourth quarter when the game was out of reach, ended up leading the team in rushing with 47 yards on six carries and was stopped one yard short of scoring a touchdown on the last play of the game.
And on defense, Kansas allowed FIU to accumulate only 139 yards of total offense. FIU’s leading rusher, A’mod Ned, had only 43 yards rushing on 12 carries and FIU had only 66 yards rushing on 26 carries carries as a whole.
Quarterback Paul McCall completed only 10 of 28 passes for 73 yards and was sacked three times. The stifling Kansas defense allowed FIU to complete only two of 14 third-down conversions.
“We were put in some situations in the red zone and we held them on some fourth downs and everything,” said linebacker Mike Rivera. “That’s a good sight to see. We had our backs against the wall and we rose to the occasion a few times. That’s a good thing to see in these early games. We gave up a field goal that we really didn’t want to but we will learn from that and make it better next week.”
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