With Kansas University set to kick off its football season at 6 p.m. Saturday night against Southeast Missouri State at Memorial Stadium, several players, old and young, will take the first step toward finding out if everything they did to change the way things go for Kansas football was worth it.

Some watched extra film and doubled their workouts. Others stayed in Lawrence instead of going home for the summer. And still others sought help from teammates and worked overtime to learn KU’s new offense.

But the one thing that many of them did that impressed head coach Charlie Weis the most was change who they are.

“The things I liked the best were commitments from players who gave up things that they didn’t like about themselves, publicly to the team,” Weis said. “I had a bunch of guys on our team saying, ‘This is what I do wrong off the field, and I’m not doing that any more.’ When the players do that on their own, when you’re not there, it clears up a lot of things. You get a lot of people focused on the only thing that’s important.”

That, of course, is winning. And if the Jayhawks are to do anything about changing the 3-9 and 1-11 seasons they’ve endured during Weis’ first two seasons in town, this extra dose of commitment will likely be a big part of it.

“A lot of the front-line guys stepped up and said, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do to help us win,'” Weis continued. “One guy did it, and then the next guy did it. The next thing you know, there’s 30 of them doing it. It was a good situation for us in the summertime.”

None of those off-the-field efforts will mean much if the Jayhawks don’t deliver on the field as well. But Weis said he believed that a big reason his group was able to commit to such a strict summer schedule — while introducing that as the way things go at Kansas to the young guys — was because of the experience and veteran leadership on the roster.

“We’ve got a bunch of older guys,” he said. “And they’re tired of losing. There’s only one way to do it, and that’s work your way out of it. That’s it.”

Anything goes

He did not divulge the specifics of KU’s offensive game plan against Southeast Missouri State, but offensive coordinator John Reagan made it clear that he would not hold anything back during Saturday’s opener.

“I want to use whatever cards we have that will score us a lot of points to make (defensive coordinator) Clint (Bowen) happy,” Reagan said. “Whatever it takes, honestly. I think with this opponent, like with any opponent, I don’t know that you hold cards. You just game-plan each one. What they do defensively will provide our game plan and go from there.”

RBs ready

When the game clock starts Saturday, freshman running back Corey Avery and his backfield mate, junior De’Andre Mann, will be in positions they did not quite expect until the injuries to senior tailbacks Brandon Bourbon and Taylor Cox popped up in preseason camp.

However, just because both guys — along with freshman safety-turned-running back Joe Dineen — will be in the lead-dog role a little quicker than they might have expected does not mean they’re not ready.

“Even before the injuries, De’Andre and Corey were both repping almost equally, and they showed they were going to be able to step in and play,” Reagan said. “It kind of just forced it to the forefront quicker.”

Asked to break down their similarities and differences, Weis got right to the point.

“Corey is probably the better athlete,” he said. “De’Andre’s probably the better football player. But Corey’s upside is through the roof. De’Andre’s ready for prime time. He’s built with that body (5-foot-9, 198 pounds) to take a big pounding. If you look at his body, a little short in stature, but he is just a rocked-up dude. I think that it’s really not that important to me which one of those guys is in there because we feel very confident about both of them.”