“Joe is really quiet,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “If you talk to him, you’ll have a hard time getting a whole lot out of him.”

Sure enough, the 6-foot-1, 280-pound junior Vaughn is not a man of many words. Not that you play football with your mouth. And Mangino is getting a whole lot out of Vaughn, a first-year transfer from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.

“He has stepped right in and has done a fantastic job,” Mangino said. “He is all business. For him, practice is fun. He loves playing in games and he shows enthusiasm while he’s playing.”

For his part, Vaughn conceded he was a different person on the field than off.

“I get very excited for games,” he said. “I get sweaty palms. I’m nervous.”

Vaughn calms his nerves by playing aggressively, using his emotions as an outlet. Mangino cited an example from last Saturday’s 46-24 win over UNLV.

“He had a couple of knock-down blocks where he actually cheered,” the KU coach said. “After a quick screen, he flattened a linebacker and, as the guy was going down to the ground, he gave one of those arm signals.”

Then what happened, coach?

“He looked for another guy to hit.”

When Vaughn was playing high school ball in Del City, Okla., a suburb of Oklahoma City, college recruiters loved his character — he was named Mr. Del City High — but didn’t consider him a major-college prospect.

So he went to NEO, a two-year school with a reputation for grooming late-bloomers into Division I-A prospects.

“That’s a good program,” Vaughn said. “It was tough at first because it’s a strict program and you had to do things the right way.”

Mangino, who knew of Vaughn from his days as an assistant coach at Oklahoma, went after him last winter, well aware he needed a center and knowing Vaughn could transfer in the spring because he was a qualifier out of high school.

Thus Vaughn enrolled for the spring semester and immediately won the center job during spring drills. It wasn’t until two weeks ago, though, that he played in his first major-college game — the 28-20 loss to Northwestern in a rainstorm.

¢ 6Sports video: Joe Vaughn has pivotal role in KU’s offensive line¢ O-line focused on making strides

“That first game was a learning experience for me,” Vaughn said. “The whole O-line just played better last week. We played with more confidence.”

Asked to assess the offensive line after two games, Mangino said none of the players had been dominating, but that “nobody is a weak link, either.”

Along the same coach-think lines, first-year aide Ed Warinner is loathe to single out any one of his linemen as leader.

“In some ways,” Warinner said, “Joe is because he is such an aggressive, great-work-ethic, extra-effort hustle guy.”

Wherever Vaughn fits into the big picture of KU’s football resurgence, it’s clear he is in the vanguard of the Jayhawks’ battle to regain competitiveness.

“You can win with Joe Vaughn,” Mangino said. “We will take all the Joe Vaughns we can get our hands on.”

Added Tony Coker, who plays next to Vaughn at right guard: “He’s feisty. He has a fire in his butt.”