The Kansas University football team, which fell, 41-38, to FCS foe South Dakota State in the season opener last Saturday, finds itself as a double-digit underdog for Week 2 against the visiting Memphis Tigers.

Memphis, which kicked off its season with a 63-7 victory over Missouri State last weekend, opened as a nine-point favorite over KU on Sunday. However, that line quickly jumped to as high as 12 points in some places.

With its limited number of scholarship players and lack of depth and proven talent, the KU program figures to be an underdog the rest of the season. And because KU’s schedule is among the toughest in the country — with the nine other Big 12 schools posing serious problems — it’s likely that KU will be double-digit underdogs — possibly as high as four or five touchdowns in some match-ups — from here until the end of the season.

Heavy underdogs or not, first-year KU coach said he saw enough from his team in the opener — especially after watching it fall behind 31-7 — to know that he has a team full of players who won’t quit.

“Those kids, they battled, and I’m really proud of them for that,” Beaty said. “They kept fighting, and that’s been something that we’ve been stressing from the day we got here. And we got put in an adverse situation (against) a very good football team. Perception aside, (South Dakota State is) really a good football team, and our guys came back, and I was proud of them for that.”

Kansas (0-1) and Memphis (1-0) are scheduled to kickoff at 6 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium.