Kansas safety Fish Smithson on mend

By Benton Smith     Nov 25, 2015

Richard Gwin
Kansas' Fish Smithson (9) comes up with a interception in the second half of the Jayhawks' 23-17 loss to TCU on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015, in Fort Worth, Texas.

Still sitting at a cool 100 total tackles for the season, and still leading Kansas University in that category after missing this past week’s West Virginia loss because of an ankle injury, junior safety Fish Smithson at least is starting to look more like himself at practices, according to coach David Beaty.

Winless KU (0-11 overall, 0-8 Big 12) will need all the help it can get Saturday, when the Jayhawks close their season against rival Kansas State (3 p.m. kickoff, FOX Sports 1) at Memorial Stadium.

Along with Smithson’s 7.8 solo tackles per game, which still leads the FBS, the 5-foot-11 safety from Baltimore has two interceptions, three pass breakups, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery for KU this season.

Beaty remains hopeful Smithson will be back on the field and making plays against the Wildcats (4-6, 1-6).

“He looked like he moved around pretty good (at Monday’s practice), which is a good sign,” Beaty said Tuesday during his weekly news conference. “He did not move good last week. We were hopeful he could make it to (the WVU game) and be OK, but it didn’t turn out that way.”

After adding he thinks Smithson will be “fine” this week, KU’s first-year coach said the rest of the roster is in relatively good health, and he expects the Jayhawks to be “pretty much at full strength” for the Sunflower Showdown.

“We’ve got a lot of guys — just like everybody in college football — that they got some nagging injuries they’re going through,” Beaty said. “But for the most part right now, we really are in pretty good shape coming out of that game the other day.”

Offensive regression

KU’s offense, which had shown some flashes of improvement since true freshman quarterback Ryan Willis became the starter in the fifth game of the season, regressed against West Virginia, netting only 221 yards with zero points to show for it.

That didn’t sit well with first-year KU offensive coordinator Rob Likens, who left the game surprised by Willis’ 23 incompletions and two interceptions, because the coach thought his QB looked “phenomenal” in his pre-game reps.

“He just was a little bit uncharacteristically inaccurate,” Likens said, adding Willis threw some deep balls out of bounds, taking away the ability of his receiving targets to make big plays.

Still, Likens thinks KU can recover and play much better against Kansas State, because the coaches and players are realistic about what it takes to produce offensively.

“The kids know — they all understand, we talk about it openly — we’re not where we want to be at as a program yet, where we can make a lot of mistakes and recover from them,” Likens said. “And they know that if we don’t take advantage of opportunities and make catches, make the plays when plays are available to us, then it’s gonna be a long Saturday. That’s where we’re at right now. We don’t have to be exactly perfect, but we have to play a very, very clean game, and we have to make the most of every opportunity for us to have a chance to win a game.”

Shelley-Smith back

Senior left tackle Jordan Shelley-Smith returned to KU’s lineup against West Virginia after missing three games due to a concussion.

Beaty said the 6-5 Shelley-Smith gave Kansas stability up front.

“Obviously, there was some rust that he had to knock off after being out for a couple weeks,” Beaty said, “but we needed him to come back in and play good for us and kind of spell Clyde (McCauley III) a little bit, which helped us.”

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