MEMPHIS, Tenn.You’ve heard the old line about statistics being for losers. Well, that pretty much summed up the Kansas side of the Liberty Bowl football game here Monday night.
A national television audience and a crowd of 50,011, which braved freezing temperatures, saw the Jayhawks whip North Carolina State in first downs and total offense.
But the Wolfpack won the game, 31-18, to make KU 1-3 in its post season bowl appearances. The only Kansas bowl win came in 1961, a 31-7 rout of Rice in the Bluebonnet Bowl.
In retrospect, it was probably Kansas’ kicking game, or lack of it, which caused the most trouble Monday. Time and again poor kickoff coverage, mediocre punting and shaky kick receiving put the Jayhawks in bad field position. Kansas never once started a drive in State territory. The Jayhawks had to march 70 yards for a first quarter score, from their own 18 to State’s 11 for a field goal and 74 yards for a last-gasp TD in the final period.
Although out-first downed 24-17 and out-offensed 348 yards to 274, the Pack needed to go only 52 yards for its first score, 19 for its second TD, and NCS got another when freshman defensive tackle Jim Henderson intercepted a Dave Jaynes pass and carried it 31 yards for the tally which made it 31-10.
Even though Kansas had impressive offensive statistics, the Jayhawks never really appeared that sharp. Fullback Robert Miller enjoyed the best game of his career in rushing for 104 yards. Jaynes threw 24 completions in 38 attempts for 218 yards and Bruce Adams had several spectacular catches among his eight receptions.
Yet there were a lot of dropped passes by Kansas players, too. Defensively, Kansas never surrendered a huge gainer but at the same time forced only one turnoverKurt Knoff’s third quarter interception.
“I’d like to compliment North Carolina State,” said KU coach Don Fambrough in the locker room. “They have a very fine football team and they deserved the win.”
“They came back in the second half and controlled the ball. We were not sharp on offense. We were dropping balls and doing things you just can’t do. Of course, they had a lot to do with that. We didn’t get a fumble recovery and threw a couple of interceptions which hurt.”
At halftime, the score was deadlocked at 10. State broke the ice when Adams, KU’s deep man on punts, stumbled (Adams claimed and TV reruns showed he was tripped) while trying to field a punt. When he fell the ball hit his leg and the Pack took possession on KU’s 19.
Adams came up fast signaling a fair catch, but tripped over a Carolinian and missed the ball. NC State safety Ralph Stringer plucked the loose ball and ran into the end zone, but officials said it was a fumble recovery at the KU 19.
Adams and other Jayhawks protested. “I was looking up at the ball,” Adams said. “I asked one official what was the rule about me tripping over someone. He said, ‘I wasn’t down there.’ I tried to get an explanation from another official but he just turned an walked away.”
Two plays later fullback Stan Fritts went in from the eight and State had a 17-10 lead.
Early in the final stanza, KU drove to the Wolfpack 23, but Mike Love, who had booted a 28-yard field goal in the second quarter, missed from 40 yards out and State followed with the drive that broke KU’s back.
More than eight minutes of clock time was erased as the Pack went 80 yards in 17 plays. Only one play was a pass. Longest of the 16 runs was Charley Young’s 12-yard TD dash at 4:50.
Young’s tally made it 24-10. Four KU plays later, Henderson snatched the pass which iced it.
“We are a better football team than the way we played tonight,” Fambrough said. “But at the same time, that is in no way meant to take anything from North Carolina State. Tonight they were the better team.”
State coach Lou Holtz, as one might expect, was ecstatic.
“We were tired of hearing things that belittled the Atlantic Coast Conference,” he said. “I don’t want to take anything away from Kansas, but I think we showed some folks that we do play good football in our league.
“We’re not real fancy. We just try to run at people, and I feel we do a pretty good job of that. We wanted to do several things. We wanted to punish their receivers, not give the deep one, force Jaynes to go to his secondary receivers and keep him contained.”
One thing Kansas maintained Monday night was its string of injuries. Linebacker Dean Baird and defensive tackle Fedro Dillon both left in the first quarter with knee wounds and each will require surgery.
Those ailments brought to 14 the number of serious injuries which struck Kansas this season.
Also hurt Monday night were running back Delvin Williams who missed the last quarter with a back injury and tight end Ken Saathoff who took a blow to the head. Neither injury was believed serious, however.
