“Who dat team gonna beat our Saints?”
That’s the Cajun-ized chant which New Orleans pro football fans use to fire up their favorites. Let’s edit that to apply here: “Who dat team can our Jayhawks beat?”
At 3-2 with six games left, Kansas University must win at least three to be considered even for a minor postseason contest. Unless the Jayhawks immediately close the gap between their sputtering offense and banner-carrying defense, they could be underdogs for all the remaining games, including Missouri and Iowa State.
KU kept trying to win Big 12 Conference games with the equivalent of three backup quarterbacks. You play three, you don’t have one. If either Brian Luke, Marcus Herford or Jason Swanson – somebody, anybody – doesn’t rise up as a consistent mainstay, the defense will be left in a hopeless position, like trying to steal first in baseball. Luke is the QB choice this week; too bad he couldn’t have apprenticed for such a chore against Florida Atlantic, Appalachian State and Louisiana Tech rather than having to produce against Oklahoma. Off-kilter though the Sooners might be, they’ll still be favored to whip Kansas.
No daylight next week, either, with that trip to Colorado. Missouri, maybe; Nebraska, probably not; at Texas, nope; Iowa State here, maybe. But that would mean only 2-for-6 for Kansas. It would open numerous cans of worms, mainly about coach Mark Mangino’s future.
Best Oklahoma line I’ve heard came from TV commentator Lou Holtz, the ex-coach: “The Sooners are struggling after a great run, but in college ball you have to realize whenever you drink the wine you can also have years when you’re stomping the grapes.”
But I still wish Kansas was playing a Missouri or Iowa State this weekend, or Kansas State again. That was a game the Jayhawks should have won had they not played so dumb and had they not been so badly managed from the sideline. That was a game Kansas simply had to win to seriously entertain bowl hopes. A 3-3 down the stretch looks darned hard to reach.
Adding to the challenge for Kansas against Oklahoma is that the Jayhawks do not have a sterling record in televised games – 19 wins, 48 losses. KU is 0-5 since its last TV victory, 35-14, over Missouri in 2003. Before that, Kansas had gone 0-6 on the tube. It’s 5-26 since 1996.
Kansas debuted on national television with a 13-0 victory over Southwest Conference glamor team TCU in 1952. The color commentator was Paul Christman, the former Missouri and Chicago Cardinal quarterback and easily the best analyst of his era. At the time, he remarked that the Chicago Bears were making a mistake splitting time with QB’s George Blanda and Ed Brown and needed to install one guy. How time flies. Now Kansas is trying to find its QB savior.
The attendance for KU-Oklahoma in Kansas City’s 80,000-seat stadium will be interesting. KU lost steam with some of its fans via that debacle at Kansas State. OU is a far cry from the team its folks once followed profusely. The loss to Texas had to cut tonight’s crowd of Big Redders. Will there be as many as 55,000 for the K.C. outing?
Whatever, college football belongs on campuses, especially if you’re trying to build a Taj Mahal in local facilities. Even OU and Texas are talking home-and-home after so many years in the crumbling Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
No place like home, so stay here!