The Fifth Quarter: Kansas 45, Toledo 13

By Ryan Greene     Sep 16, 2007

Some thoughts…from Memorial Stadium

Ryan Wood, Journal-World KU football beat writer

“For once, the offensive effort didn’t flirt with flawless. KU had a lot of dropped passes, the offensive line allowed several sacks and fumble-itis came and went.

But the Jayhawks scored plenty of points, regardless. Add to it a pretty good defensive effort, and KU did exactly what it should’ve done against a mediocre MAC team – win big, and improve to 3-0.

Kansas showed that it’s not invincible tonight. Better now than on Oct. 6 when Big 12 play starts.”

Tom Keegan, Journal-World sports editor

“Sloppy, even ugly at times Saturday night, Kansas wasn’t dull. The Jayhawks have too many playmakers on both sides of the ball, and playmakers have a way of keeping it interesting. Overall, it wasn’t a terrific effort, but it did include a number of great plays, supplied by Aqib Talib, John Larson, Darrell Stuckey, Jake Sharp, Todd Reesing and others.”

Ryan Greene, KUSports.com editor

“Todd Reesing wasn’t at his best. Two of his passing numbers (313 yards, four touchdowns) don’t show that. One figure (16-of-35) does. Some times his passes were too high, sometimes too short. But what mattered most was that on three routine, short passes, his playmakers were able to turn them into scores, and by those, I’m referencing the touchdowns by Marcus Henry, Aqib Talib and Dexton Fields.

Not bad, even though KU’s reserves didn’t close out Toledo as emphatically as they had the two previous opponents. Though, with everything going on in college football, 3-0 is nothing to scoff at.”

Inside the numbers

66.7: That’s the percentage of Aqib Talib’s career receptions that have gone for touchdowns. To make it simpler, four out of six. That’s pretty good. Saturday may have displayed his most impressive touchdown yet, though, as he executed a full flip in mid-air from past the five-yard line to beat an oncoming defender to the pylon. No flag was needed, as the dive was warranted, though Talib is lucky the crossing of the ball between his legs was shielded by teammates and not penalized.

3: KU finally got into an opposing quarterback’s interception stat line. Each of the Jayhawks’ three picks were flashy in their own way. Darrell Stuckey’s was acrobatic, leaping backwards on a deep ball. Aqib Talib showed some flair in his 17-yard return following a defensive grab. Then, John Larson, showed some great athleticism by sniffing out a screen play and snatching it out of mid-air deep in Toledo territory late in the contest.

133: Marcus Henry tied a KU record with his third-straight 100-yard receiving effort. Not only that, but his 355 yards to date through three games already has surpassed his 312 from the entire 2006 campaign. His most impressive grab Saturday was on his 42-yard score, where he showcased his 4.3-range speed by literally running away from three Rocket defenders after catching a routine curl.

2: One area of concern which is lost in the mix a bit after a big win was the pair of punts that sophomore Raimond Pendleton muffed in the first half – one of which was recovered by Toledo. While he’s shown that he has the speed to be a punt returner, he might still need a little extra work on catching punts in traffic.

4: Toledo had not registered a sack in two games this season entering Saturday’s contest. The Rockets finished the game with four, but Todd Reesing handled pressure well and showed escapability from the pocket when needed. Don’t let those four sacks sour a solid performance from the offensive line. Behind that wall, KU racked up 232 yards on the ground, including 127 from sophomore Jake Sharp on just 13 carries.

Just in case you missed it…

After the game, Aqib Talib said that his touchdown catch Saturday was probably his most memorable play as a Jayhawk. The leap from the five-yard line is what most will remember, but what shouldn’t be overlooked is that he’s showing good wide receiver instincts when getting the ball in his hands during limited snaps on that side of the ball. He showed great moves to get to the sideline and accelerated beautifully. Plus, you can tell that at the next level, if he gets chances to slide into the end zone, he’ll be a fun celebration artist to watch.

Hopefully, you didn’t miss it…

Todd Reesing’s numbers looked great despite some mis-firings on a throw here and there Saturday. He is still interceptionless through three games, with 10 touchdown passes to complement that goose egg. Saturday showed that even when he isn’t as accurate as he can be, he can still find ways to get the ball to the guys who can cover up his miscues.

They said it…

Mark Mangino on Jake Sharp getting the brunt of the time in the backfield: “There were some plays against their defensive front that we thought were plays that Jake would hit ’em pretty quick, get to the second and third level pretty quick, and that’s the way it played out.”

Mark Mangino on his receivers dropping some passes early: “There’s no excuse for the dropped passes, and we’re not going to make any and none will be accepted. We can’t do that to be a really good football team. But the positive is some of the guys who dropped the balls came back and made really good catches and made plays. And you like to see that they can get over making a bad play or two and move forward.”

Aqib Talib on his dive into the end zone: “I felt somebody coming, I had to get in the ‘zone. I won’t go out of bounds. I had to get in the ‘zone. I felt like I could get there from the five, just took off with it…There were people coming this time, so I felt like it was a threat, so they had no right to throw the flag this time.”

Aqib Talib on if those leaping abilities stemmed from a history of long jumping: “I used to long jump in high school. I was no good at it.”

James McClinton on how it feels to finally have takeaways in the book: “It feels good, man. We’ve still gotta emphasize more turnovers. We can’t stop here. We’re trying to reach the goal of being the top in our conference in turnovers. That’s our goal, and we emphasize it everyday.”

James McClinton talks about John Larson coming up short on the end zone following his pick: “I wanted to see him score, man. One-yard away, man. I guess he needs to work on his running back vision. Send him over to the running backs in practice, man. But that was good. I’m glad to see that. He works hard, he’s put on some weight since he got here, and look at him now.”

Todd Reesing on learning from some miscues Saturday: “We just weren’t sharp tonight, despite the ability to put a bunch of points up and get the win, which is great. There’s a lot of things that we did do that wasn’t our best ball. That’s OK, it happens, I’m glad we had the ability to get that game out of the way, learn from it, and I think it’s only going to make us better in the long run.”

Todd Reesing on his receivers stretching short passes into long scores: “That’s the bright spot I see is that we didn’t have some big plays, and the wide receivers were able to catch some balls and break some tackles and get touchdowns for us, which is huge to know that you have guys out there that if you just get the ball in their hands, they’re going to make a play for us. It helps when you’re not having your most consistent, on-key game, is the fact that guys are going to make big plays and make up for a larger number of the bad ones, I’d say.”

Darrell Stuckey on the secondary making a statement: “It’s the fact that we have a lot to prove as a secondary. Last year we were 100-and-something in the nation in pass defense, and that’s something that we will not look back to, that’s something we will never be again. And we have in our minds that we’re confident we can be one of the best secondaries in this nation.”

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