Kansas

[E.T.]

Chavez: Freshman quarterback bright spot for football team

By Jimmy Chavez

Monday, April 17, 2006

Mark Mangino has to feel as if the Easter Bunny brought him something special this year.

During Friday’s Annual Spring game, all of us in the Memorial Stadium press box had a bird’s-eye-view of something different; something that Jayhawk football under Mangino has seldom enjoyed.

The much ballyhooed freshman quarterback Kerry Meier, who has had fans eagerly clamoring for September 2, stepped into the huddle Friday night with confidence. By game’s end, he had fans ready to start a four-and-a-half month tailgate, leading up to the home opener against Northwestern State.

For now, KU fans have reason to be excited and so does Mangino. It wasn’t so much Meier’s final stat line that had people excited, it was his presence on the field.

Meier ended up notching four touchdowns, three by air and one on the ground. He looked calm and collected. He threw the prettiest pass of the night, when he hit junior tight end Derek Fine for the first touchdown of the game. Meier looked savvy in the pocket. The pass had incredible arc with a textbook spiral down the field that hit Fine in stride.

Meier looks like a big-time college quarterback. Even Athletics Director Lew Perkins had a skip in his step after the game. As we got in the elevator to leave the press box, I overheard him say that it looked like Kansas had found itself a quarterback.

Of course, it would be cliché to compare Meier to former Kansas quarterback Bill Whittemore. I can’t do that. That’s only because Meier looks like a quarterback with throwing ability that hasn’t been seen around Lawrence in a long time.

It was Meiers precocious decision making that had to give Mangino goose bumps on Friday. Since he came to Kansas, Mangino has looked for a signal caller that had the consistent intellect that matched the ability. Those quarterback qualities are what helped make a name for Mangino, when he was the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. The then-quarterback Josh Heupel lead the Sooners to a National Championship in 2000.

Mangino needs a quarterback again like Heupel, who was not afraid to thrive in big games.

Now is Meier going to do that at Kansas? Well, that’s an argument for another day. As for now, tomorrow might have just became a whole lot brighter for the Kansas football team with Meier in the picture.

[E.T.]

KANSAS Team Report

By The Sports Xchange

4/11/2006

INSIDE SLANT

With the need to break in a new quarterback as well as find go-to receivers, fifth-year Kansas coach Mark Mangino wasn't going to back down from adding to the degree of difficulty in spring practice.

"We're going to back 'em up, put 'em in a lot of third-down yardage situations," Mangino said. "We're going to back 'em up to the goal line and make them work out of there. We're going to put them in difficult situations that they have to overcome."

The challenges stem from both the overall inconsistency of the offense last season, and its subpar rate on third-down conversions.

Kansas did improve greatly down the stretch, a key reason it won four of its last five games and beat Houston in the Fort Worth Bowl to finish 7-5, the Jayhawks' first winning mark since 1995.

But with seven starters gone off a defense that ranked 11th nationally, the offense must be more efficient if KU is to challenge in the wide-open Big 12 North.

The Jayhawks ranked ninth in the Big 12 last season in third down conversions (34.4 percent) and total offense (329.7 yards per game).

"We have to be a better first-and-10 team, because if you're not good on first-and-10, that's how you end up third-and-long," Mangino said.

The Jayhawks will do so while appraising two quarterbacks, senior Adam Barmann and redshirt freshman Kerry Meier. A third QB, true freshman Todd Reesing, enrolled in the spring and will practice, but will take fewer repetitions.

NOTES, QUOTES

BUILDING BLOCKS: Replacing a solid trio of linebackers led by the Big 12's leading tackler, Nick Reid, will be a challenge Kansas embraces because of the athleticism possessed by potential replacements at those positions. The biggest question is whether the new group can position itself to make plays. Finding playmakers to replace DE Charlton Keith and CB Charles Gordon won't be easy, either.

COACHING CAROUSEL: Linebackers coach Dave Doeren accepted a position with new Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema. The Jayhawks brought in Mike Mallory as Doeren's replacement. The bigger surprise, however, was that no program made a big stab at defensive coordinator Bill Young after the Jayhawks ranked third nationally last season stopping the run.

SCHEDULING SITUATION: A trip to Toledo, as well as a home game with South Florida, will be tough non-conference challenges for Kansas. The game with the Rockets will be televised nationally on Friday, Sept. 15. The Big 12 opener at Nebraska will be an interesting clash in the North Division, particularly after the Jayhawks throttled the Huskers 40-15 last season to end a 36-game losing streak in the series.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "We want to settle the quarterback situation. This will not be a long, protracted process as it has been in the past. We're going to watch them carefully and decide no later than the end of spring, possibly before that. But we want to have ... the No. 1 guy, and that's it." -- Kansas coach Mark Mangino.

STRATEGY AND PERSONNEL

STARS OF 2006: SS Jerome Kemp -- A hard hitter who returns as a leader on defense next season as one of the most experienced defenders. He led the KU secondary in tackles in 2005.

TE Derek Fine -- An overlooked weapon in the Kansas offense, Fine has emerged as a solid blocker and unexpected target. A member of coach Mark Mangino's first class, he left the program once because of medical issues, then returned and will be a junior in '06.

RB Jon Cornish -- Named the Jayhawks' offensive player of the year last season, Cornish isn't afraid to run hard, though his line was inconsistent providing holes.

TOP NEWCOMERS: Of the junior college transfers Kansas signed, it hopes that either Blake Bueltel or Michael McCoy supplies immediate help for a thin secondary. RB Jake Sharp, who set a Kansas high school record with 63 career touchdowns, could work his way onto special teams.

ROSTER REPORT: LB Eric Washington and DL Todd Haselhorst will both miss contact drills during the spring after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. ... RB Gary Green also is tending to an undisclosed injury. ... FS Rodney Harris, who returned to the program after spending last year at home in California, injured his neck during spring drills. He is not practicing, though the severity of the injury is undetermined. Harris started 11 games for KU as a sophomore in 2004.

[flsportsfan83]

we should win this one but it could go either way.

[bullman3]

I will be there for that game, southwest has non stops into KC, MO.  

[JoeB]

I think this will be a tougher game than expected.  They aren't exactly Oklahoma, but our Bulls will have to play well to beat this team on the road.

[lotsofbull99]

Maybe we can distract Mangino with an all you can eat buffet before the game.

[Brad]

KANSAN.com

Wacker: New players + new schedule = same result for football team

By Brian Wacker (Contact)

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Kerry Meier’s four-touchdown performance in the annual Spring Game was exciting, especially considering the Jayhawks had a grand total of 13 passing touchdowns all of last year.

But before you start scraping your cash together for a plane ticket to the Fiesta Bowl, take a look at next year’s team and its schedule and you’ll probably come to the same conclusion I did: This is a team that will be lucky to break .500.

The defense — and in particular, the rushing defense — was Kansas’ bread and butter last year. Led by Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Nick Reid, the D allowed less than 1,000 yards of rushing and only eight rushing touchdowns in 12 games. It would have been even less than that had KU not played Texas, which gained 336 yards on the ground and scored four rushing touchdowns.

But the anchors of that defense — Reid, Kevin Kane, Banks Floodman, Charlton Keith, Charles Gordon and Theo Baines — have all played their last games at Memorial Stadium. Without a returning starting linebacker or half of its secondary, it’s implausible to believe that Kansas will even come close to matching last season’s defensive output.

Without its defense playing at such a high level, Kansas could have easily gone 2-9 last season. That’s because the offense was an embarrassment. Whether it was terrible play-calling and personnel decisions by the coaching staff or underachieving, not-talented-enough players, the Kansas offense consistently produced inconsistency. With the emergence of Meier as at least a serviceable quarterback, it looks like the offense will show improvement. But really, anything is an improvement, compared to last year’s musical chair act that played out behind center.

The changes on offense and defense should ultimately result in a wash if Meier is able to live up the early hype.

But the biggest reason Kansas won’t improve upon last season’s record is the schedule. First look at the non-conference schedule, which features early tests from big name teams. After two cupcakes against Northwestern State and Louisiana Monroe, the Jayhawks will go on the road to Toledo for a nationally-televised match up, against a team that won the GMAC Bowl (comparable to the Fort Worth Bowl) and that will already have been battle-tested by an opening game against fellow Big 12 North chum Iowa State. The following week, the Bulls of South Florida will storm into Lawrence. The Bulls lost to N.C. State in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on New Year’s Eve last season. But they are no strangers to playing tough non-conference games on the road. South Florida lost at Penn State by 10 points and at No. 9 Miami last season.

Jayhawks fans will and should feel happy with a 3-1 record going into Big 12 Conference play, which won’t offer any free lunches next season. The Big 12 North’s stock is rising with Nebraska, which the Jayhawks face in Lincoln, bringing in its second top-rated recruiting class in a row and still glowing from its upset of Michigan in the Alamo Bowl. Did anyone really think the ’Huskers would stay down for long?

Other tough tests will come at home against Colorado, which always plays Kansas well, Texas A&M, a team looking to prove itself legitimate after a disastrous 2005 season, and tough road games at Iowa State and Missouri, which will want to avenge three straight losses to Kansas. The remaining three games are at Baylor and at home against Oklahoma State and Kansas State. Those are games that Kansas should win, but as the Jayhawks proved against the Wildcats last season in Manhattan, the better team doesn’t always come out on top.

My prediction is that Kansas will finish the season the season at 6-6, just enough to return to the Fort Worth Bowl and beat an equally average opponent from an inferior conference.

Look, there are literally thousands of things that could happen between now and the beginning of football season that could change the way Jayhawk fans look at next year’s season. Nebraska quarterback Zak Taylor may go down with an injury. Missouri’s athletics department may decide to scrap funding for its football team to cover its legal bills. Nick Reid may find a discrepancy on his ARTS Form and discover he still has another year of eligibility.

But right now, with the players that Kansas is bringing back and the tougher pre-conference schedule, it doesn’t look like Jayhawk football will be moving forward next season.

It’s hard to when you’re stuck in neutral.

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[E.T.]

Nice props to us.

Ready to STORM into their house !

[flsportsfan83]

How far is KC, MO from campus?

[E.T.]

How far is KC, MO from campus?

...it is about 35 miles.