A hard-hitting safety for Kansas in the early 90s, defensive coordinator Clint Bowen said he couldn’t play defensive back in today’s spread-heavy Big 12.

“I’d have to be a linebacker,” Bowen said. “I can’t cover these fast guys.”

The Jayhawks’ leader with 114 tackles in 1993, Bowen said today’s Big 12 scarcely resembled his days in the Big 8. The power and isolation runs that dominated that league have given way to a full-court spread attack on nearly every campus.

Bowen doesn’t have to worry about suiting up and learning a new position, but it is his job — and that of every defensive coordinator in the conference — to figure out how to stop this offensive monster.

This season the results are building Heisman campaigns on offense and leaving the defenses huffing and puffing.

“I’ve talked to a couple of coordinators at other schools,” Bowen said. “If you look at the numbers that these offenses in this conference are putting up, it’s kind of making us not look so good on the defensive side of the ball.”

Coach Mark Mangino agreed.

“Right now with spread offenses, very few people are playing what I would call great defense,” he said.

Seven Big 12 offenses rank in the top 25 in total offense — led by Texas Tech at No. 2 — but none of the defenses rank higher than Oklahoma at No. 34. In fact, four defensive units rank in the bottom 25 nationally. It’s not that defenses haven’t made steps toward containing the spread, but Bowen said those advances weren’t always easy to spot.

Of course, sometimes a defense makes all others jealous by obliterating a high-powered spread offense, as Texas’ did in its 56-31 victory against Missouri.

“Texas is such a special monster,” Bowen said. “They’ve got four guys that no one can block, so it’s unfair for them.”

For teams without a beastly defensive line, stopping the spread requires creative ways of getting to the quarterback.

Some may say blitzing Texas Tech is the answer, but Bowen said the Red Raiders could handle the pressure.

“They’ve thrown the ball 343 times this year, and Graham Harrell’s been sacked one time, when their guard fell over,” he said. “It’s not as easy to get to him as people think.”

Last week against Texas Tech, Texas A&M tried rushing three linemen and put the rest back into coverage. Kansas’ coaching staff put a stopwatch on the Aggie pass rush, and sometimes Harrell stood in the pocket for up to 14 seconds before firing a pass.

Even if a secondary had all 11 players trying to play coverage, it probably couldn’t keep a receiver from getting open for 14 seconds. Especially if that receiver was Texas Tech sophomore Michael Crabtree.

Crabtree won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver last year, and in 2008 he has 103.4 yards per game and 12 touchdowns.

Bowen said Crabtree was so effective because he could run sandlot routes, which means he breaks off his original route when it’s covered and finds open space for Harrell to throw to him.

Harrell and Crabtree have hooked up for more touchdowns in the past year and a half than any other quarterback-wide receiver combo.

On top of the duo’s gypsy-like ability to read each other’s mind, Texas Tech’s offensive line scheme plays a huge role in the passing attack.

Each lineman lines up almost three yards apart from each other. This creates more space for blitzes up the middle, but also makes rushing the ends null and void.

“It really negates any edge pressure,” Bowen said. “You run around the ends, but just by the nature of the distance the quarterback has time to throw it.”

That zany lineup has forced many coaches to concoct an equally zany defense — such as A&M’s eight man secondary — but Texas Tech counters that with slice-and-dice runs. Mangino said it was easy for a coach to get in his own way when preparing for the Red Raiders.

“People that come up with these new-fangled defenses and all kind of different looks that they don’t normally do, they get into more trouble than the people who just try to play the defense they’ve been playing all year,” Mangino said. “I think it’s a recipe for disaster.”

Junior Darrell Stuckey is a hard-hitting safety and the leader of Kansas’ secondary. Stuckey has the athleticism to keep up with the spread because he played running back and wide receiver in a spread offensein high school.

Stuckey’s had plenty of experience on both sides of the ball in football’s flavor-of-the-decade and he said it will last only as long as the defenses allow it to.

“In the past you always hear about the power-I, or how are you going to stop this running back,” Stuckey said. “Now it’s the spread. It’s going to keep evolving and the game’s going to keep changing. The question is always going to be there — it’s just going to change.”