Head coach Charlie Weis summed it up with, “I thought it was a really good start for him. … I didn’t think it was great. I thought it was a good start.”

Offensive coordinator John Reagan called it, “pretty good.”

It will take more than the obvious, which is putting the right touch on medium-to-long throws, for Cozart to draw even better feedback, and it won’t happen overnight.

Part of learning the art of reading a defense involves seeing and reacting to running opportunities, not just holes in which to throw. Like a young hitter who grows better at recognizing pitches when his visual systems sharpen through repetition, quarterbacks become better at realizing what the defense is giving them.

Wisely, Kansas University football coaches aren’t telling Cozart to run more often. Instead, they’re showing him on film instances when the defense gave him room to run. The more times he’s shown such lost chances, the more apt he is to recognize the next chance. If told to run more often, he’ll guess, instead of feel, that it’s time to tuck and fly. It’s always better when the athlete feels it himself.

“I think that’s a slippery slope if you try to tell a quarterback what to do. It’s very similar to telling a running back where he should run,” Reagan said. “There’s a general idea of where you think it should be, but you’re not sitting there in that moment. There are no rules for it. It’s a decision that guy’s got to make at that time.”

As with any decision in any walk of life, the more information the one making the decision has, the better the chance he’ll make the right call. As Cozart improves at seizing running opportunities, KU will become much tougher to defend.

“There were some times where he could have pulled the ball down and gotten a couple big chunks himself, but he’s doing what we’re telling him to do,” Weis said. “But sometimes you have to let that athleticism … just turn it free and go ahead and go. I think as we’re going forward, there are going to be more and more opportunities.”

Cozart threw three touchdowns and was not intercepted.

“That’s one stat we’re not talking about,” Weis said. “That’s big. Now, we’re not content with 50 percent completions. It’s an improvement over last year, but it’s just not what we’re shooting for.”

Reagan said he is “not displeased at all with the way he came out and played in his first game (in the new spread offense). I think the concerns that may have been out there about him, I think he answered most of them.”

Weis continues to maintain Cozart has the ability to complete long passes.

“Oh, he can do it,” Weis said. “We practice every single day. I know what people can do and what they can’t do. He can do it. There’s not a question in my mind whether he can do it.”

Nobody doubts Cozart’s ability to run.