The most telling moment of Saturday’s 35-7 loss to No. 3 Texas may not have even come during the game.

Asked afterwards if he thought his team was better than they have played the last two weeks, quarterback Todd Reesing had to pause. He couldn’t answer the question. Maybe he wasn’t sure if they actually were any better. Maybe that’s just who this team is — a squad struggling to hold its own against a much tougher schedule.

The silence lasted almost three seconds.

“I think so,” Reesing finally said. “I think the guys are fighting. I don’t think anyone’s giving up. It’s not like there’s a lack of effort. I think everyone’s playing hard. Today, we got beat by a better team.”

Not just a better team — a much better team. Playing with national title hopes still alive, Texas played like the football powerhouse that Kansas someday wants to become. It was another tough reminder that Kansas football has a long ways to go to be considered one of the elite teams in the Big 12 Conference.

After playing the three Big 12 South teams that they didn’t have to play a year ago ­— Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech — the Jayhawks went 0-3 and raised even more questions about the validity of last year’s magical 12-1 season.

“There’s a lot more to look at than the teams we played,” Mike Rivera, senior linebacker, said. “We have a lot of new guys on the team. It’s a different team than it was last year.”

The team may be different, but so are the results. A year ago the Jayhawks were taking an 11-0 record and a No. 2 national ranking into arguably the biggest game in school history against Missouri. Now, they are just trying to beat the Tigers to guarantee a trip to a lower-tier bowl game.

And it happened in a way on Saturday that not many would have predicted. After getting shredded for huge numbers against Texas Tech, Oklahoma and even Nebraska, the KU defense looked like the dominating unit that made it one of the best in the nation in 2007.

They held Heisman Trophy candidate Colt McCoy to just 255 yards passing and stopped the high-powered Texas offense on four of six possessions in the first half. But while the defense showed up to play for one of the few times this season, the KU offense surprisingly struggled.

The offense accumulated a season-low 305 yards and scored just seven points. They converted only six of 16 third-down attempts and failed three times on fourth downs, the biggest killers coming in the first half when they to convert fourth-down tries of just one and two yards.

“Our offense did not capitalize on the opportunities that our defense gave us,” coach Mark Mangino said. “We squandered a good defensive effort today.”

Mangino went as far as calling it the most frustrating performance of the season on offense for a team that entered the game 21st in the nation in scoring offense at more than 34 points per game.

Photo Gallery

Kansas Football vs. Texas

A photo gallery of the football game against Texas.

“That would be a fair assessment,” Mangino said. “We just didn’t execute well in a lot of areas. It wasn’t smooth, it wasn’t in sync. It wasn’t hitting on all cylinders. It wasn’t the type of offense that we like to play here.”

Part of the problem on offense came because of injuries to two of the Jayhawks’ biggest weapons, running back Jake Sharp and wide receiver Kerry Meier.

Sharp appeared to injure his rib cage during the second quarter and called it a day shortly after trying to return after halftime. Meier seemed to injure his hamstring or quad on the team’s first drive of the game and was used sparingly the rest of the way.

Sharp’s replacement, Angus Quigley, fumbled twice and gave Texas prime field position on both occasions. As a team, the Jayhawks ran for just 47 yards, but most of those came from Jocques Crawford late in the game with the score out of reach.

“Yeah, this year the schedule is more difficult and the challenges are greater,” Mangino said. “But I’m not going to make any excuses. We showed up, we played as hard as we could we played as tough as we could, our kids gave great effort every week out and here’s the result.”

The result is a 6-5 football team that now has to somehow regroup before playing rival Missouri in two weeks at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.

“We would always like to win more games than we have,” Rivera said. “But there’s only one thing left for us to do and that’s to go out and play this last game the best we can. It’s a little disappointing that we didn’t win as many or didn’t do all these big things, but we can go out and play this last game and end on a good note.”

For Kansas, playing for pride is about all they have left.

— — Edited by Kelsey Hayes