Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Three days after the Kansas defense had one of the worst statistical days in the history of the school, players met with the media on Tuesday to try to explain what happened.
As safety Justin Thornton said, “It was a little bit of everything.”
The KU defense allowed 468 passing yards to Sam Bradford and the Oklahoma offense, the third-most passing yards allowed by a Kansas defense in the 118-year history of the program. The run defense didn’t do much better, allowing more than 200 yards rushing for the first time in 34 games. The 674 total yards were the fifth most allowed in the school’s 1,169 game history.
“I was embarrassed,” Thornton said. “I feel like we’re a good defense and I think we’re better than what everybody’s seen. They put yards up on us that they didn’t even put up against less talented teams.”
Oklahoma ran 97 offensive plays, which is more than any team has run against Kansas this year. Some defensive players also were forced to help the struggling special teams by joining those units as well. The combination was a tired group of Jayhawks gasping for air on the sidelines.
“I was more tired than normal and I couldn’t figure out why,” Thornton said. “But then we were watching the film and I realized we ran 60-something plays in the first half, and that’s on average what we run for a whole game. So we pretty much played a whole game’s worth of snaps in one half. That takes a toll on you.”
In addition to allowing Oklahoma receivers to make wide-open catches, the KU defense struggled with their tackling. Several OU plays could have gone for short gains, but missed tackles allowed them to move the ball right up the field.
One reason for the poor tackling could be because the team rarely does any full contact drills once the season begins. They will do some specific tackling drills, but rarely will they wrap up players and force them to the ground.
“We didn’t tackle very well,” Thornton said. “We had a lot of missed tackles. That is one thing that the coaches and all of the players will be focused on this week in practice is just being more physical and getting guys to the ground.”
”We had been pretty good at it until this past week,” said coach Mark Mangino.
The vibe among players discussing the defensive problems was that the problems were surprisingly small and correctable. That’s good news for KU fans, because Saturday’s opponent, Texas Tech, is one of the top passing teams in the nation and runs a spread offense similar to Oklahoma’s.
Thornton and the defense promised not to let another game like Oklahoma happen again.
“We’re out to make a statement,” Thornton said. “We’re going to come out, play hard and rebound from this.”
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