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KU vs. Colorado

Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino's words and actions during and after Saturday's 30-14 victory against Colorado at Memorial Stadium amounted to a father unfastening the training wheels from a bicycle and tossing them in the attic for storage.

The days of winning football games with less than a strong, 60-minute, three-unit effort are over and as monstrous a second-half-of-the-season schedule as any in the country awaits.

In a sign that the ante has been upped, Mangino immediately took preventative action against distractions during Oklahoma week. In effect, he told his players to zip it.

"We're not supposed to talk about it," sophomore defensive end Jake Laptad said, asked about KU's next game, in Norman.

Tuesday's weekly news conference with Mangino and his players promises to be as vanilla as any in history. The goal: keep the Oklahoma bulletin board as empty as Paris Hilton's head.

Kansas, which showed noticeable improvement in the areas of offensive-line play, pass rush and secondary performance Saturday, will need every imaginable edge to hang with Oklahoma. A special-teams performance as shoddy as the one Kansas littered the field with Saturday isn't going to cut it. That's why Mangino kept going back to the shortcomings of the kickoff team and kickoff-coverage team during his postgame remarks. That's why he filled punt returner Daymond Patterson's ears with disapproval and then removed him from the game in favor of Dexton Fields. And that's why Mangino will be more personally involved coaching the special teams this week.

His team made it through the first half of the season with a 5-1 record, by winning the five games it was supposed to win and losing at the last second the tossup game. That record came against Florida International, Louisiana Tech, South Florid, Sam Houston State, Iowa State and Colorado. Basic math. Up next, advanced calculus: Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas State, Nebraska, Texas and Missouri.

Such names, at least four of them, are enough to fill football fans with fear, even depression. Not the players and coaches. That's why they sign up to compete in the Big 12.

Initially, when asked about the Oklahoma game, Mangino used the company line he established: We're not talking about that today.

Later, asked about a remaining schedule that features games against four of the nation's top seven teams, plus a road game against Nebraska, always a tough place to play, Mangino sounded like a coach eager to get after it.

"I see a great opportunity," Mangino said. "I see an opportunity for our football program to make a statement."

The statement would be that Kansas can play with any team, any time, anywhere with players the superpowers decided not to recruit.

Mangino (42-37, first KU coach with a winning record since Jack Mitchell, 1958-1966), in KU's 12th season in the Big 12, became the first coach to finish with a winning record (7-1) in conference play since the expansion. The next step: Getting a victory or three against Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Texas, against which Mangino is 0-6 with a couple of close calls, both in 2004.