Columbia, Mo. — DeShawn Hanika tells his fellow tight ends, “We like to live in hell.”
It’s a shorthand for a mindset that he and his teammates will have to adopt over the course of the next week and a half, as they embrace the opportunity to battle through their first major adversity as a team.
“We like the challenges,” Hanika said on Saturday, “because without the challenges it’s easy, and we don’t like easy here.”
The Jayhawks enter their first of a virtually unprecedented three bye weeks — roughly evenly spaced throughout the season — on something of a sour note after falling 42-31 to rival Missouri on Saturday at Faurot Field.
“Now you’re sitting here thinking about the last game, and the last game was a loss,” quarterback Jalon Daniels said. “So now we have one week to be able to continue to keep thinking about that, and the next week after that, it’s the next game. I think that this loss is going to be (in) a lot of our heads going into these next two weeks and we’re going to keep on preparing (to go) 1-0 like we usually do.”
The schedule is the simple part: the Jayhawks took a day off on Sunday ahead of Monday’s lift, with practices Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and lifting and running on Friday. Coaches will spend some time on the road recruiting.
Another day off on Saturday will precede the start of game-week practices next Sunday, ahead of the Big 12 opener against West Virginia on Sept. 20 at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. (The Mountaineers, by the way, are encountering some early adversity of their own amid the return of coach Rich Rodriguez; they lost 17-10 to MAC school Ohio on Saturday and have their big rivalry game, the Backyard Brawl against Pittsburgh, coming up next before they see KU.)
Leipold said he was encouraged by the attitude he saw from his team in the locker room after the defeat at Missouri: “There wasn’t frustration at one another or what was happening around them, other than just frustration with the outcome of what transpired. That gives me great hope about this group.”
As for finding specific ways to improve, that will require a certain level of self-evaluation as part of what Hanika calls “look-in-the-mirror week.”
“We need to look in the mirror and we need to come in on Monday morning and accept every coaching there is, whether it’s good or bad,” Hanika said. “This staff is unbelievable, they know what they’re talking about, they know what they’re doing, and it’s on us at the end of the day. It’s not on anyone else, and we got to come in ready to learn and get better and have that type of mindset instead of being defensive.”
Leipold said KU could look to work on its fundamentals or its assignments “or whatever the case may be across the board.”
Hanika said he needs to pass-block better to give Daniels time to work. Middle linebacker Trey Lathan, for his part, expressed frustration with some of the penalties the Jayhawks incurred on defense in the loss to Missouri. Even though KU only had two penalties assessed for 10 yards, the Jayhawks had several more declined, as they continually jumped offsides at the snap, giving MU quarterback Beau Pribula a series of free plays. The one time Tommy Dunn Jr. jumped and made contact with an opposing player — resulting in a whistle to blow the play dead, instead of a free play — it turned a third-and-6 in the red zone into a third-and-1, which the Tigers converted on their way to a touchdown.
“Definitely going to be working hard at that,” Lathan said. “Just staying together, not letting this linger on in the locker room too much.”
The Jayhawks have a lot of football left to play — at least nine games, in fact. That’s not usually the case when they enter a bye week like this, and by the time they make it to the next open date, Oct. 18, they will have already crossed the midway point, having hosted WVU and Cincinnati and traveled to UCF and Texas Tech.
For now, they have an early chance to steer themselves in the right direction as they enter the next phase of their season.
“I really like this team,” Leipold said on Saturday. “I’ve told them that for a long time. And I’m confident just looking in their eyes afterwards that they’re going to come to work on Monday ready to get after it, get coached and find a way to take another step.”
AP Photo/Colin E. Braley
