Kansas Football: Loss to TCU shows KU still long way from improvement

While there wasn’t much hope for Kansas football to beat a previously ranked TCU squad on the road, the effort the Jayhawks gave on Saturday didn’t inspire a lot of confidence for the future of this program.

Beating Boston College on the road was a big time win for Les Miles in his first year at the helm and it’s a game that, under David Beaty, Kansas football probably doesn’t win. Miles has made a difference, but fans saw firsthand on Saturday just how far away true contention is for this KU team moving forward.

Kansas looked lifeless against the clearly better TCU Horned Frogs, who curb stomped the Jayhawks by a score of 51-14 and held the crimson and blue to a total of 159 yards on offense. Not a great effort by KU in this one.

The run game, which had been so prominent in past games, wasn’t a factor at all in Fort Worth, as the Jayhawks tallied just 75 yards on the ground. Pooka Williams didn’t do much, carrying the ball eight times for 12 measly yards. Velton Gardner did the most damage on the ground on only four carries for 61 yards and scoring one of KU’s two touchdowns.

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The Jayhawks did have to abandon the run game earlier than they’d have liked, as they were down 38-0 at the end of the third quarter. Running the ball isn’t really an option by that point.

Even still, the passing game wasn’t much better, as quarterback Carter Stanley completed just 12 passes off 29 attempts for 84 yards and a touchdown. He wasn’t picked off at all, but it was clear that Stanley didn’t have it on Saturday. Pooka Williams was more of a threat in the receiving game, grabbing three catches for 33 yards and Stanley’s only touchdown pass.

As for the defense, they had a lot of problems in Fort Worth, surrendering over 600 yards to the Horned Frog offense. Three different TCU quarterbacks racked up a total of 306 yards passing and Max Duggan had two passing touchdowns. None of those quarterbacks threw a pick.

The KU run defense continued to plague this team, as they allowed over 300 yards on the ground to go along with four rushing touchdowns. Darius Anderson had 115 yards rushing off 18 carries and a touchdown.

Caleb Sampson recorded the only KU sack while Gavin Potter led the team in tackles with 11. The run defense looked bad, but there’s reason for optimism with some of the defensive players for sure. This is a Big 12 defense after all and we all know the stereotype with Big 12 defenses.

This was an embarrassing loss, but it goes to show all of us the the Kansas Jayhawks are nowhere near ready for big games yet on the gridiron and that’s okay. Les Miles will hopefully get this program in the right direction eventually, but it won’t happen overnight. Losses like this are still to be expected.

It won’t get any easier for Kansas football next week, as the Oklahoma Sooners will come to Lawrence in what’s sure to be an ugly game for the Jayhawks. The last time OU came to town, Baker Mayfield made an unpleasant gesture to the crowd.