Five Questions — Kansas

By Steve Habel

One team came to play. One team didn’t.

  There wasn’t much left to be said after No. 24 Texas’ 43-0 dismantling of Kansas before a crowd of 99,211 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. The Horns dominated the line of scrimmage from the opening snap and never let their foot off the gas, rolling to cartoonish advantages in every statistical category.

  Those stats are stupefying. Texas outgained the Jayhawks 590-46, racked up 35 first downs to KU’s 3, outrushed Kansas 441 yards to minus-2 and ran 93 plays to the Jayhawks’ 36, just 12 more than UT ran in the first quarter. “We might have to scrimmage tomorrow to get some plays to coach off of,” defensive coordinator Manny Diaz deadpanned after the win. “I’ve never seen or heard of a team running just 36 plays.”

  The Jayhawks, who’d already endured five consecutive losses and four straight games against teams ranked in the Oct. 23 BCS standings, were overmatched from the start and battered, bruised and humbled at the end. “This was a tough game all around,” Kansas coach Turner Gill said. “I wasn’t expecting us to be totally shut down like we were, but give the credit to the Texas defense. They are very good.

  Texas coach Mack Brown said haveing such a dominating win is imperative for the psyche of his team. “It’s really important, especially after the way we lost the previous two games,” he explained. “Those were losses to two teams [Oklahoma and Oklahoma State] that may be as good as anybody in the country. This win — in this manner — gives our players some hope as they finish the season.”

  Kansas helped the Horns’ cause, going just 1-for-10 on third down conversions and venturing to the Texas side of the field just once, on its final possession of the game when it advanced to the UT 40. The Jayhawks had nearly as many dropped passes (five) as completions (seven).

  The Horns received two touchdowns apiece from true freshmen running backs Joe Bergeron (13 carries for 136 yards and scores from four and 35 yards) and Malcolm Brown (28 for 119 and 6- and 1-yard scoring runs). Brown and Bergeron are the first pair of Texas true freshmen ever to rush for 100 yards or better in the same game.

  Texas got its fifth touchdown on the ground as well, as true freshman quarterback David Ash scored on a nifty 2-yard scramble. Ash was workmanlike and mostly efficient under and behind center, completing 14 of 18 passes for 145 yards while starting and playing until deep in the third quarter.

  UT had 71 rushes and six drives of nine plays or more. It had a 44:07-15:53 edge in time of possession, meaning it had the ball on offense almost three full quarters.

  “Our game plan was to run the ball and establish the line of scrimmage,” Malcolm Brown said. “The offensive line did a great job of getting the push, and we kept on pounding the rock.”

  The Horns even scored on a team safety when Kansas center Jeremiah Hatch clubbed UT’s Kheeston Randall in the head while the Jayhawks ran a play from their own end zone in the second quarter. Texas had a safety Oct. 15 against Oklahoma State as well. The last time UT had safeties in back-to-back games was 1982 against Texas A&M and Arkansas.

  Senior Justin Tucker, who was given a lighter practice load in the open week to rest his leg for the Horns’ final six games, blasted a career-best 52-yard field goal on the last play of the first half. He added a 33-yarder in the fourth quarter and is 10 of 11 this season.

  Texas ended up with 590 total yards; Kansas had just 46 after entering the game averaging more than 405 yards per game against teams like Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Texas Tech. “We played full defense tonight,” linebacker Keenan Robinson said, “and that’s been what we wanted to do since the beginning of the season.”

  After all the stats above, the most telling may be this: with the win Texas has its first home conference victory since beating (who else) Kansas in 2009.

  The Horns now have as many wins as all of last season and look like a team on the rise. “We didn’t win anywhere last year — we just stunk,” Brown said. “You can make those numbers fit anything you want to. Now we’re 3-1 at home, and we’re obviously playing better at home this year.”

  The road ahead is much tougher, starting this week with an 11 a.m. kickoff Saturday against Texas Tech, who laid a huge egg on Saturday in a 41-7 home loss to Iowa State a week after beating Oklahoma. Then comes a road game versus Missouri, who stunned Texas A&M in College Station this week, and a tough Kansas State team, who was lambasted by an angry Oklahoma squad.

  Texas ends the season with road games against Texas A&M and Baylor, two teams that seem to be on the decline. “We know these last five games are going to be tough, but we’ve got a chance in each one of them now,” Brown said. “I’m not sure you could have said that at the beginning of the season.”

1.      What could Texas have done better against Kansas?

As dominating as the statistics and final score were, things could have — and should have — been better offensively.

  Texas failed to score twice when it ventured inside Kansas’ 10-yard line during the first half, turning the ball over on downs once (when Ash was stopped on fourth and goal from the KU 1) and losing a chance to score to an interception in the end zone on an Ash pass that was tipped.

  In the third quarter, with the Horns in field goal range, Ash was rushed and retreated twice before being sacked. The play led to Tucker’s only punt of the game. That’s 17 potential points UT lost to mistakes, points that weren’t needed against Kansas but might be in future games.

  “There are still a lot of things we’ll need to correct,” offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin said. “There always are in a game. This game we made new mistakes. We’re always talking about correcting the ones from the week before, and we did that.”

  Harsin was content with his unit’s effort. “I’m proud of the guys, and the way they played the entire game,” Harsin added. “One of the things we talk about is going out there and playing with an edge, doing your job and finishing. Tonight our guys did. We came out early and were firing and playing hard. We finished the game the way we wanted to.”

2.      How important was preserving the shutout to Texas?

So much so that the starting defensive unit ran back on the field on the Jayhawks’ final possession to make sure Kansas didn’t score. Diaz looked at linebacker Keenan Robinson when asked about reinserting the starters. “Did I send you back in?” Diaz asked Robinson. The senior linebacker smiled and looked down. “We wanted to get the zero,” Robinson answered. “There was no way they were going to score with us on the sideline.”

  “They are a prideful bunch,” Diaz said. “It meant a lot to them to keep that zero on the board. I was happy with their ability to stop them.” The shutout was Texas’ first since a 62-0 beatdown of Baylor in Waco in 2005.

  “It’s hard to get a shutout in college football anywhere, but it’s really hard in the Big 12 with how many points are scored,” Brown said. “Those seniors were going to go back in there — they didn’t much ask at the end. I told them if they’d gone in there and had gotten hurt, we’d be having a discussion. They’re really proud of themselves.”

  A few more defensive tidbits: Kansas’ 36 total plays are the fewest plays allowed in a game in Big 12 history. KU’s three first downs established a new Jayhawk record for futility in the statistical category (its previous low in first downs [four] was in 1972 against Nebraska). “It was nice to see our guys being disruptive and making plays on the ball,” Diaz said.

3.      Has Ash established himself as the No. 1 quarterback?

Ash started his second straight game and impressed both Brown and Harsin with his play. “Everything he did was tonight was better than we’ve seen him do,” Brown said.

  “I’m learning to get the ball out quickly and to take what the defense gives me without forcing anything,” Ash said. “I struggled with that early on, by trying to force things that weren’t there.”

  Harsin said that Ash managed the game better and was seeing what he needed to see to get the offense out of some plays that could have been bad. “He used some checks and audibles,” Harsin said. “He continues to get better in those areas — now it’s just focusing on those interceptions and those sacks. As we eliminate those, we’re moving in the right direction.”

  But completing nearly 78 percent of his passes, running to get first downs and a touchdown, and leading his team to a convincing win against an overmatched opponent still isn’t enough to get the either/or starter designation removed on the Texas depth chart next to Ash’s name.

  “The deal on the quarterbacks is that we’re developing two guys,” Harsin said. “Case [McCoy] came in tonight and did everything we asked him to do. He continues to do that in practice. Both those guys have done a nice job in meetings, in practice, in preparing themselves. They both deserve to play.”

4.      Is Marquise Goodwin back as major cog for the offense?

It sure seems like it, and it’s about time. The UT coaches placed an emphasis on getting the ball in the hands of the wide receiver, who had four catches for 36 yards and ran the ball five times for 52 yards.

  “Marquise wasn’t getting the ball enough — we all knew that,” Brown said. “We made a conscious effort tonight to make sure we got the ball in his hands more. He’s just now learning what to do because he came so late, he missed spring practice, he missed all summer and he missed the preseason. We felt like we had a speed advantage on the corners against Kansas, and that fit in well with the plans to get the ball to Marquise.”

  Once, on a speed sweep coming left, Goodwin seemingly had a lane to take the ball the distance, but as he was getting into high gear, he stumbled over his own feet and fell after a 12-yard gain. “We were just trying to stay balanced with inside-outside type runs,” Harsin said, “and Marquise did a nice job of that.”

5.      Who is the Horns’ new tight end?

That would be 6’ 7”, 297-pound offensive lineman Luke Poehlman, who donned No. 82 and moved from a reserve left guard position to tight end, where he was able to help the Horns secure the end of the line in UT’s running game.

“Getting Luke out there was an opportunity to get another big body out there on the edge,” Harsin said. “Luke’s done a really nice job and deserves to be on the field. We’re trying to figure out how to get guys who are working hard into the game. He did his job tonight — he set the edge and he helped us by just being physical and a bigger guy than he was up against. It helped the run game.”

With the tight end spot seemingly confined to run support — Texas’ tight ends had just one catch for 13 yards against Kansas and have just six seven catches for 66 yards in the past four games — Poehlman works well at the position. Perhaps one day we’ll see how he catches the ball.