Column: Nazis, gators, ’Horns, oh my

By Tom Keegan     Sep 27, 2014

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, to start World War II, a more recent event than Kansas University’s last football victory against Texas.

Kansas will attempt to defeat Texas today for the first time in 76 years and three days.

Sept. 24, 1938 was not a good day for the image of the Lone Star State’s university in Austin for reasons that extend beyond the 19-18 loss to the Jayhawks in Lawrence.

According to dccrimestories.com, it also was the day that UT grad and saloon owner Joe Ball, a man suspected of killing more than a dozen women and feeding them to his pet alligator, shot himself to death. Ball, the website said, charged customers for the right to watch him feed dogs, cats and possums to his alligator, which lived in a pond behind his saloon near San Antonio.

“After several barmaids, girlfriends and his wife disappeared, people began asking questions,” Scott McCabe of dccrimestories.com wrote.

Upon discovery of his storage place for the bodies, a 55-gallon barrel that reeked of death, Ball ended his life.

So Kansas defeating Texas was far from the strangest thing connected to the Longhorns that day.

And Kansas ending an 11-game losing streak to Texas might not even qualify as the most bizarre occurrence in college football today, but it would rank right up there.

Seven things that would help to end the streak of futility for Kansas in a series that went on hiatus from 1939 through 1995:

  1. Call an abundance of quarterback runs, forcing sophomore Montell Cozart, who has been so reluctant to use his speed, to startle a defense that has studied an athlete who appears to want to do anything but run. Don’t suggest to Cozart that he should run more. Make him run more.

  2. Employ whatever strategy necessary to keep Texas defensive tackle Malcolm Brown from blowing up the offensive line on his way to forcing Cozart into hurried turnovers. Easier said than done, obviously, but Kansas neutralized Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh in 2009, the year he finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Whatever Brown can do, Suh could do better, so it’s not an unrealistic goal. Maybe use fullback Ed Fink for extra protection from time to time?

  3. Play whatever receivers can do the best job of blocking on the perimeter so they can clear the way for Tony Pierson. Put the ball in Pierson’s hands on the outside via short passes and especially runs. He has the speed to abuse any defense, given the space to do so, but he can’t do it if he doesn’t have the ball in his hands.

  4. Don’t bother trying to throw it down-field because that invites disaster, given UT’s ability to bring the rush, the speed of the secondary and the lack of success Kansas has had throwing balls that stay in the air for a long time.

  5. Run the ball as much as possible to keep the clock moving. A shorter game gives the underdog a better shot at winning. Make no mistake, KU is the underdog here.

  6. Bring the heat from both edges, even if that means blitzing excessively to make that happen. As was Cozart, Tryone Swoopes, a true sophomore who became the starter for UT when David Ash retired (concussions), was activated in the seventh game of a freshman season most expected him to spend as a red shirt. He doesn’t have a great deal of experience. Try to rattle him. Swoopes is huge, but not all that mobile.

  7. Don’t attempt field goals. Just go for it on fourth down. The kicking game hasn’t been reliable enough in recent years to surrender a first-down opportunity for a kick that has a strong chance of failing.

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45185Column: Nazis, gators, ’Horns, oh my