Kansas Jayhawk News and Notes 8.27.12

It's here, game week! The first week of the season has arrived and preparations for SDSU are in full swing. It's been a long quiet offseason but that could be a good thing. Conference realignment wasn't a hot topic, distractions, suspensions and other summer time issues were nearly nonexistent. Now we get to see what it all means. Plenty of articles trickling out this week and they all seem to have a similar tone, one last chance to make things right.

Kansas Football

Crist’s one last chance to put it all together - KansasCity.com
"There’s nothing he can’t handle," KU quarterbacks coach Ron Powlus says.

End all, be all: Versatile Toben Opurum settling in | KUsports.com
"You have a strong-side end and a weak-side end, and Toben is a rush end (weak-side)," Weis said. "But if you teams try to mismatch you and get bigger on you, then Toben would slide out to (Sam) linebacker, and we’d put another defensive end on the field so you didn’t have a position where a 245-pound guy was your defensive end and 300-pound tackles were blocking him, and they’re running at you on every play. ... If you’re small, that’s what teams could do. They’d just line up and bring up the big boys and just pound away. So you need to have a plan in place in case they decide to do that."

Lubbock's last stand: KU safety Lubbock Smith's career comes full circle | KUsports.com
And then there are more specific terms such as "member of The Sporting News’ freshman All-Big 12 team," or "honorable mention freshman All-American." The last two tags came following the 2009 season, when Smith started as a red-shirt freshman and was among the team’s leading tacklers before an injury cost him the season finale.

KU's Heeney finds fresh start with new staff | CJOnline.com
“From an experience standpoint, we’ve got a ways to go on some of those guys. (But) we’re not going to be anywhere near where we need to be unless we’re running to the ball, and he’s one of the guys that will do that for sure.”