Last season, Kansas football boasted the 31st-ranked rushing offense in the nation, plowing its way to nearly 200 yards per game on the ground. The 2007 Jayhawks accomplished those feats on the shoulders of Brandon McAnderson — a converted fullback — and Jake Sharp — an undersized third-down back.

Plug last year’s junior college offensive player of the year into the equation, and this year’s Kansas ground game could top the team’s 2007 accomplishments.

Kansas coach Mark Mangino may have been thinking along those lines when he reeled in Jocques Crawford, a 6-foot-1, 230-pound junior running back out of Cisco Junior College in Texas.

“He looks really good on tape, and he’s a really good-looking guy in person,” Mangino said. “He has explosion, he has that next gear everybody talks about and he’s powerful. He’s a very well-built, muscular guy that can break tackles as well as make people miss.”

Crawford led all junior college players with 1,935 rushing yards last season and scored 19 touchdowns. One year earlier, he tallied 1,069 rushing yards and eight touchdowns. Crawford’s sterling stat lines stretch back to his prep days at Cordova High in Memphis, Tenn., where he rushed for 1,381 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior.

Crawford’s impressive high school numbers drew the attention of Division I programs, and he signed to play at Texas Tech. But when he ran into legal trouble, Texas Tech dropped Crawford. Even with the running back’s personal problems behind him, he had to turn to junior college to continue his football career.

Two years later, Crawford is prepping to become a Jayhawk — potentially the team’s featured running back.

“I’m just trying to come in and earn the starting spot, but I’m not asking for it to be given to me,” Crawford said. “I really like my chances.”

The junior college import will face competition for carries from junior running backs Jake Sharp and Angus Quigley.

Sharp was a major contributor early last season and ranked 12th in the Big 12 in rushing yards per game, but his production dropped off significantly late in the season. He carried the ball 10 times for 33 yards in the final two games of 2007, and gained zero yards from scrimmage against Missouri.

At 6-foot-2 and 222 pounds, Quigley looks the part of star running back, but has struggled with injuries and inconsistency throughout his time at Kansas. Last year he played in parts of six games and gained 98 yards on 17 carries. Sophomore running back Carmon Boyd-Anderson, who showed promise in four early-season games last year, could also be in the mix for playing time.

The final say on who carries the load for the Jayhawks will be up to Mangino, and he hasn’t handed the reins to Crawford just yet.

“Jocques will come in here and compete like every other guy on the team,” Mangino said. “We were hoping he’d come in and have an immediate impact — that’s our hope. But he has to prove that just like the rest of the team.”

—Edited by Samuel Lamb