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In a game with plenty of implications expanding beyond a simple rivalry – in a Sunflower Showdown that featured two teams seething to silence the mouths of critics and doubters – a close contest unfolded inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

Kansas State scored first with a field goal, Kansas answered with a touchdown. The Wildcats grinded the ball on the ground, the Jayhawks decided to throw. And so on.

Yet the most telling and drastic variation between the two teams was a matter-of-fact difference: K-State committed fewer mistakes than Kansas.

In doing so, K-State clinched a 17-10 victory while settling into the driver’s seat in the Big 12 North race. Kansas, meanwhile, witnessed its chance of capturing the North disappear.

“The turnovers, the penalties, a couple little things here and there, it doomed us,” coach Mark Mangino said. “We have to face facts: They played smart football today and we did not.”

Kansas had three turnovers and, in a continuingly alarming trend, all came by way of senior quarterback Todd Reesing.

Reesing has always played his best he has something to prove. He has ridden the role of underdog to an Orange Bowl victory and to the top of Kansas’ record books.

And after a tumultuous three-game stretch dating back to Kansas’ game against Colorado on Oct. 17, Reesing certainly entered Saturday’s Sunflower Showdown with plenty to prove.

Instead, Reesing continued to digress and his mistakes continued to hurt.

Reesing coughed the ball up three more times in the first half alone – his eighth, ninth and 10th turnovers the last four weeks.

“They took advantage of miscues and capitalized on them,” Mangino said.

Reesing led Kansas on a touchdown drive to give the Jayhawks a 7-3 lead in the second quarter. Then he handed the lead right back in the final minute before halftime with a costly fumble.

After scrambling downfield, Reesing lunged into two K-State defenders and the ball popped loose. The Wildcats recovered at the Jayhawks’ 43-yard line and subsequently scored a touchdown when Grant Gregory found Lamark Brown for a 31-yard catch and pass.

K-State jogged into the locker room at halftime with a 10-7 lead and plenty of recently shifted momentum.

After the game, Reesing struggled to verbalize his – and Kansas’ – struggles.

“I have no idea,” Reesing said. “Your guess is as good as mine. This week was probably the best week of practice we’ve had in a long time.”

On K-State’s opening drive in the third quarter, the Wildcats marched straight through the Jayhawks’ defense.

K-State rattled off nine plays – eight of which were runs – and picked up 79 yards on the ground. K-State running back Daniel Thomas carried the ball five times for 63 yards and a touchdown on the drive.

And it was a common trend.

Thomas, a powerfully built running back at 6-foot-2, 227 pounds, bulled through Kansas’ defense. He finished with 185 yards on 24 carries.

“He was always good for extra yardage,” junior cornerback Chris Harris said.

Kansas’ patchwork defense – sophomore cornerback Anthony Davis played significantly for the first time since the season opener – continued its streak of relatively steady play for much of the game.

But the problem was that the Jayhawks failed to get stops in the game’s most critical moments.

After Kansas cut the lead to 17-10, K-State started a drive with 5 minutes, 20 seconds left in the game. In need of a stop, the Jayhawks couldn’t manage to find one. The Wildcats ran the clock to zero.

“We couldn’t get that stop at the end,” Harris said. “I felt like we did beat ourselves.”

Kansas has now lost four consecutive games and the final stretch of the season doesn’t get much easier: Nebraska travels to Lawrence next week before Kansas plays a road game with Texas.

Yet this game also marked Kansas’ first loss in the Sunflower Showdown since 2005.

“I think it goes without saying that when you lose to a rival it hurts more than losing to somebody else,” Reesing said. “We enjoyed a pretty good stretch there with three years in a row. This is the first time I’ve had a loss to K-State, and it’s not what you want. It hurts. It stings.”

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