Jayhawks overcome Bearkats, 38-14
The win wasn’t pretty, but 3-1 Hawks ended Saturday night victorious.
By B.J. Rains (Contact)
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
Sophomore defensive tackle Jamal Greene celebrates with teammates after a tackle for no gain during the first quarter of Saturday's game. The defensive stand led to a missed Bearkat field goal, keeping the game tied at zero after the first quarter of play.
Kansas coach Mark Mangino tried just about everything.
He started seldom-used wide receivers Raymond Brown and Raimond Pendleton to shake up the wide receiving corps. He started Angus Quigley at running back over Jake Sharp and Jocques Crawford. He even started linebacker Arist Wright over team captain Mike Rivera.
But for more than a quarter of Saturday night’s 38-14 victory over Sam Houston State, the changes didn’t seem to be enough. So Mangino did what any good coach would do — he made more.
He subbed in linebacker Dakota Lewis for James Holt on Sam Houston State’s second drive of the game. He brought in Olaitan Oguntodu for a key third down play. And after cornerback Isiah Barfield got beat on a couple of pass routes, Mangino brought in redshirt freshman Ryan Murphy for a try.
But still, with almost five minutes gone in the second quarter, the score with Division I-AA Sam Houston State remained tied at 0-0.
“At KU, you have to play every play like it’s your last,” Mangino said of the shakeup. “When you don’t do that, you don’t play. It’s a privilege to play here, not a right.”
That meant it was time for team leader and safety Darrell Stuckey to step up once again and get his teammates back on track. The junior intercepted a Rhett Bomar pass at the Bearkats’ 15 yard line and returned it to the one, setting up a one-yard touchdown run by quarterback Todd Reesing that put the Jayhawks up 7-0.
“If you were a starter and all of a sudden you rode the bench tonight, obviously you see that Coach is serious,” said Quigley, who rushed for 61 yards and a touchdown in the first start of his Kansas career. “Like, ‘Hey, I need to pick my stuff up. I can’t help this team from the sideline. Obviously I wasn’t productive enough and I need to get it together.’ Competition is always healthy.”
On the ensuing Sam Houston State drive, Barfield returned from the bench to intercept a deflected pass, giving the KU offense the ball near midfield.
It took just 41 seconds for Reesing and company to score again — this time on a 68-yard pass from Reesing to Kerry Meier, who had eight catches for 136 yards in addition to the touchdown.
After going scoreless for almost 20 minutes, the Jayhawks put up 14 points in less than three-and-a-half minutes to awaken a subdued sellout crowd and take a 14-0 lead midway through the second quarter.
“This is college football. It’s always unpredictable,” Quigley said. “They played hard; give them credit for that. We didn’t have any expectations coming out, but of course, we’re not pleased with that.”
Sam Houston State scored soon after to make it 14-7, but Reesing, as he has all season, put the team on his back with a play that will be talked about for days. The 5-foot-11 quarterback scrambled for 11 seconds, going from one side of the field all the way back to the other before launching a pass that traveled 60 yards in the air and fell into the hands of Dezmon Briscoe.
Briscoe walked into the end zone on the 57-yard completion for his fifth touchdown of the season, putting Kansas up 21-7 at the half and swinging all the momentum to the Jayhawk sideline.
Reesing threw for 356 yards and two touchdowns but was sacked on two different occasions for losses of at least 10 yards each. On several occasions, he flushed the pocket and attempted to run when it seemed as though he had plenty of time to look for an open receiver.
“He believes that somewhere, somebody told him that he needs to be the whole show,” Mangino said. “He doesn’t. He has a good supporting cast here, and he’s putting a lot of pressure on himself to make too many plays. “
The Kansas offense racked up 528 yards including a season-high 161 yards on the ground. Crawford ran for 43 yards on 12 carries, and Sharp, who didn’t receive his first carry until fewer than five minutes remained in the game, had 24 yards on five carries.
The holes seemed to be more glaring on defense, where the Jayhawk secondary allowed Bomar to rack up 340 yards through the air. It was a revolving door at the corner position as Barfield, Murphy and Corrigan Powell all struggled with the opportunity.
“We’ve got to be able to play some basic coverages with those young guys,” Mangino said. “We’ve got to take a hard look at that position. We can’t cut people loose. We can’t get beat on a vertical every time somebody runs a vertical.”
Since Kansas needs improvement at every position, the bye week seems to have come at the perfect time.
“We need it,” Mangino said. “We need to work on fundamentals. It will be a good week for that. We will focus on getting better.”
— Edited by Rachel Burchfield
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