Sunday, November 04, 2007

Jayhawk Status Update

Top 5 in the Nation
It's official: we're #4 in BCS and #5 in AP.

New fans
Here's an article on why Mangino should run up the score on Nebraska, given the opportunity.

And, this guy has to be the coolest hippie ever. I thought I saw him in the Baylor game briefly on TV and wondered who he was. Leave it to Emily Jones to find out for me. He calls himself White Owl.




New foes :)
Dan Cornhusker-fan on Kansas before the game
Andy Cornhusker burns his jersey after beating "lowly" Kansas.

This is why I love Kansas Football

I never thought I'd see it. A blued-out, sold-out Memorial Stadium with blood-thirsty eyes anxious for the next notch in our undefeated belt secured against long-time thorn in our side Nebraska. And our boys delivered with a 76-39 massacre.

Do you think if Nebraska fans were aware it would be Kansas breaking their record for most-allowed points in a game, they would have bothered to come out at all? It somehow feels like oh-so-sweet justice.

If you've been a fan of Mangino for long, or since 2002, like many of us, the atmosphere feels almost cathartic. You've suffered along the incessant, unending f/phat coach jokes, overrated chants ("Hey, Bennett! We're not impressed either!"), and frankly local media over-shadowing each Fall on account our wonderful basketball program. We've exchanged all this for talk of coach of the year, national double-takes at Reesing and outraged K-State and Mizzou fans appealing together to Nebraska for a win because they can't stand to watch us be undefeated anymore. If we're acting like we haven't been here before... well, it's because we haven't.

So, what's our new rank?
In a few hours we'll know for sure, but with Boston College dropping down, and Arizona St at least a spot, it seems #6 at least. But, I digress...

Post-Game Chatter
Back to business. Aside from a couple of strange decisions by Reesing, offense looked near flawless. We scored on nearly every drive and enjoyed great success on the passing with 0 turnovers.

A quick question for the O: why aren't we playing Quigley more? He looked the first-stringer part to me when we brought him in at the end of the Baylor game to earn us a touchdown and a solid drive just yards short of it right off the bench. If anyone has some info on this guy, I'd be interested.

And on the Defense: OK - what happened? Even if we attribute the early 14 points scored in the first minutes of the first quarter to feeling out the mysterious Ganz on QB, our ineffectiveness on D seemed uncharacteristic. Don't get me wrong, I'm a *fan* of our defensive coordinator, but something was out-of-sync. This was the same team who was critical in earning us the win against A&M. Yesterday, Talib was beaten for 2 touchdowns? We blew covering Purify without explanation.. twice?

I'm optimistic we'll take this week as a learning experience: our D is great, but not invincible. And really, I'm grateful we have a well-balanced team capable of covering for each other when asked and dangerous when we're not asked. It was an incredible effort and I hope the team is proud! We can't wait for Oklahoma State.

Rock Chalk!
-T.