Kansas Jayhawks Football: Report Card VS Texas Longhorns

Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

For the sake of my pride, let’s keep this short and sweet this week, ok? I mean, what else is there to say about the Kansas Jayhawks that hasn’t already been covered? The offense was all but completely ineffective. The defense played a heck of a game but will get knocked for “giving up” twenty-three points. And Weis was fired for a lack of progress four games into the season. Not exactly an uplifting story line on the week.

More from Kansas Jayhawks

• LOOK: First Renditions of David Booth Memorial Stadium and the KU Gateway District
• NBA Draft Prospects to Watch From Kansas, Missouri, and Kansas State
• Where Betting Markets Say Gradey Dick Will Land in the NBA Draft
• Kansas’ Christian Braun Wins Fifth Title in Seven Years, Joins Elite Company with NBA Championship
• The No.8 Jayhawks Get Hooked by the No. 20 Longhorns

 OFFENSE: PRETTY MUCH OFFENSIVE

How? How can you run more than thirty plays in your opponent’s territory and not score any points? I mean at some point the law of averages would say the Jayhawks would accidentally score, right? Alas, this wasn’t the case as a remarkable seven KU drives ended in UT territory – 2 interceptions, 3 punts and 2 on downs.

Perhaps the most frustrating of these drives was in the third quarter when Kansas had 1^st and goal from the 9 and ran four passing plays for 8 yards. Because why would your running backs that averaged nearly five yards per carry? That wouldn’t make sense at all. I hope you’re picking up my sarcasm.

Oh, and in one more example of “I told you so,” the Jayhawks were primed for a score on their opening possession after hitting SR tight end Jimmay Mundine for a 35-yard gain right up the middle. After that? Yeah, he wasn’t targeted again. Which also makes total sense.

All right, one of those interceptions was on a hail mary to end the first half. The other three were just awful. The first one came on a tipped ball as Cozart tried to throw across the field as the Jayhawks were threatening to score on their opening possession. How much different do you think the game would have been if KU scores a touchdown on this drive? Yeah me too.

Other than the interceptions it was another typical Cozart game. Bad reads, bad throws, etc. I’m not giving him an F because the offensive line did a pretty horrible job of giving him pass protection. Which leads me to another point – the receivers have to learn how to break their routes and come back to the ball when Cozart is running for his life. When your QB is struggling in general, you gotta help him out and the Kansas receivers didn’t do that at all on Saturday.

Coming into the game, we knew that even with a good defense, Texas was susceptible to the run. For the game the Jayhawks racked up 211 yards rushing, albeit 173 yards net after eight tackles for a loss.  Mann continues to impress, averaging 4.9 yards per carry on the day despite still being underutilized by the coaching staff.  Hopefully Bowen realizes that this is the strength of the Kansas offense and starts letting the team grind it out a little more starting next week against West Virginia.