In an effort to circumvent the fact that I have to write this post and have a ton of stuff to do for law school this weekend, I was going to announce that I was going to put the same effort into this post as KU did against Baylor Saturday. Sadly, that would result in either me not writing anything, or swearing a bunch. Either way I would probably be fired from this sweet gig I have going.
And so the rollercoaster ride continues. This is one of the weeks where hopefully the saying of "it's never as good or as bad as it seems" rings true, as the hometown 11 has a lot to fix during their week off before the Sunflower state Showdown vs. Kansas State. But before we look forward, we must (sadly) look back.
1. Contain the quarterback
I think we can safely say this one didn't go so well. RGIII ran for 64 yards and a touchdown, and through the air was 26-36 for 380 yards and 3 TD's, including a 94 yard TD pass that was a glorified WR screen where Josh Gordon outran the entire Jayhawk defense. Furthering the illustration that we failed to contain RGIII, Kansas had 0 sacks and just 1 QB hurry. Yikes.
2. Run the Football
More failure. Kansas had less than 100 yards rushing as a team (though if you take out sacks that number is 117 yards). DJ Beshears had the "best" day, averaging 3.9 YPC and running for 47 yards. Flat top had 14 carries for 39 yards (2.8 YPC). It's clear that while there is clearly talent in the backfield, the line is the most important part of that equation and Kansas just isn't there right now.
3. Field Position
Although Kansas went through a period in the second half where they went 4 drives without running a play in Baylor territory, they still managed to run 42.4% of their plays in opposing territory for the game. (28 for 66).
Baylor was basically Kansas's equal in the field position game, running 36 of their 86 plays in Jayhawk territory (41.8%). Of course pure percentage doesn't tell the whole story, as Baylor ran a ton more plays and they were much more explosive (i.e. the 94 yard TD pass).
4. Turnovers
Well, Baylor didn't turn it over at all (unless you count them going 1-2 on 4th down conversions) and Kansas had 2 fumbles lost and 2 interceptions thrown. So whoops on that one. I didn't watch the game so I can't say if the turnovers were particularly bad or not, though I do know Thorson got beat pretty bad on one of Webb's fumbles. His poor play has seemingly been a theme this year.
I'd love to wrap this up and wax poetic about how we were a couple bounces from it being close, but it looks like Kansas just got dominated. We'll have a week off to prepare for Kansas State, and hopefully it turns out the same way as it did the last time we played a run dominant team.