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By Steve Clark Football is a funny game.
A month ago the Kansas Jayhawkers were riding high on preseason national predictions ranking them everywhere from first to 18th. Big Eight sportswriters unanimously picked them to win the league crown.
Today this same Kansas team has a 0-2-1 overall record and is 0-1 in conference play. Lost are hopes of a high national ranking and fading quickly are Orange Bowl aspirations.
For the first three quarters Kansas is a national champion. In each game the Jayhawkers have bounced to an early lead. At halftime Jack Mitchell's crew have retired to the dressing room with the scoreboard reading in their favor.
What stands between the Kansas football team of today and the same team a month ago? The answer is, a quarter of football.
In the second half, particularly the fourth quarter, the Jayhawkers not so much lose momentum as the opposition gains it. With a few key plays the opponent pushes across a winning touchdown in the waning moments of the game.
Against Texas Christian the Jayhawkers led all the way until five minutes to go. Against Wyoming, it was a fourth quarter TD that gave the Cowboys a tie. And Colorado—nary a KU fan expected three touchdown passes in 13 minutes.
Strike off that fourth quarter and what do you have? Kansas with a 3-0 record and a probable ranking in the top five nationally.
Football games are not played in only three quarters however. KU players and fans are getting a memorable lesson that "the game isn't over 'til the last man's out." Parodizing a popular song of several years ago, KU football fans are singing "What a Difference a Quarter Makes."
The Kansas football players have given a gallant effort in their first three games. Many have played their hearts out only to lose in that disastrous fourth quarter.
These are the losses that hurt. Any player would rather lose a game 34-0 than to lead up until the last quarter and then get beat.
A football player feels miserable after a contest similar to the KU-CU game. You don't have to ask a KU footballer how it feels. Ask any of approximately 1,000 KU men who played football in high school. They will relate probably at least one experience similar to Saturday's game and tell how badly they felt.
There is one thing to remember, however. No football team, no player, no coach steps onto the football field to lose a game. No matter how good or poor a team is, it still goes onto the field with the idea it can win the game.
This is not a "rah-rah support the team article." Each KU student had high expectations of the Jayhawkers this year and these expectations have been let down. The KU student has a right to be disappointed.
Jack Mitchell's Kansas Jayhawkers are no exception. Each Saturday they have gone out to win a football game. They have played winning football for three quarters and they have lost.
Football is a funny game.
Colorado Leads
Colorado gained its first all-time lead in its football series with Kansas Saturday when they downed the Hawks. The series stands at 10-9-2. The Jayhawkers saw their 34-6 victory of last season adjusted to a 1-0 forfeit to fall into a 9-9-2 deadlock. The Jayhawkers never have been worse than even in this series, since opening with a 12-11 victory in 1903.
Harriers Post First Victory
The Kansas cross country squad served warning to their Big Eight competitors Saturday by downing defending NAIA champion Southern Illinois and rival Missouri 25-31-79 over a windy Lawrence Country Club course.
The Jayhawkers whipped Missouri in dual competition 15-48.
KU's senior captain Bill Dotson outdistanced NAIA individual champion Joe Thomas and Jim Dupree both from Southern Illinois and teammate Charlie Hayward. Dotson's winning time was 15:07.3. Hayward finished fifteen yards back for second place; Dupree was third and Thomas fourth.
Tragedy struck senior Dan Ralston who had been running behind Dotson for the Jayhawkers. Ralston ran into the sprinkler system on the golf course, knocking a hose up that struck his leg momentarily paralyzing it. Ralston fell but recovered quickly enough to stay in the race. Nevertheless, he finished far back. Ralston's injury is not serious and the senior is expected to run next meet.
Nebraska's Ray Stevens was individual winner, but Colorado runners, mostly sophomores, copped the next five places to win handily.
KU sophomore Tonni Coane placed fifth; Bill Thornton and Mike Fulghum took eighth and ninth respectively behind two Southern Illinois runners.
In other Big Eight cross country action Colorado easily won its triangular meet with Kansas State and Nebraska.
Hadi Sixth
Producing 82 run-pass yards in the season's opener against Texas Christian. All America quarterback, John Hadl, moved past Ralph Miller into sixth place on Kansas' all-time Total Offense tables at 1,519 yards.
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Mitchell Praises Team's Hard Play
Fighting his way through a crowd at the door of the Colorado locker room, Kansas' Jack Mitchell said. "I'm the other coach, won't you please let me through."
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Mitchell, after saying a few words to the Colorado team, had little to say to his own squad but made these comments to the press.
In the other locker room Head Coach Sonny Grandelius said, "This is the greatest comeback I've ever seen anywhere, anytime during my association with football.
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"I didn't think we played badly for the first three quarters but our mistakes kept us in trouble."
"Our offense was real good, the best this season. McClinton was great and the entire line did a tremendous job. The loss of Hugh Smith didn't hurt us."
"Maupintour's 11th Year Serving KU and Lawrence"
"I would never run a running play against us if I were the other coach. I would just send a man straight down the field and throw him the ball. We would probably have been beaten 40-0 if Colorado had done what they did in the fourth period sooner.
"It was the hardest I have ever seen a team play and whip somebody only to give the game away on easy touchdowns. It is the same old story which we were faced with in the TCU and Wyoming games. I just don't know what we can do. One thing, we are going to have Hadl playing more on defense.
Left end Ken Blair, who made an alert catch for CU's second score, had this explanation of the play, "I thought McFarland had the ball for sure. He came right across in front of me and had it timed perfectly. I was getting ready to tackle him but the ball slipped through his hands and dropped right into mine."
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"The pattern of that last touchdown was almost the same as we were working at the end of the first half," said Jerry Hillebrand, who caught the game-winning pass. "I just ran at the halfback, faked in and cut to the outside. I was surprised I was open because they had two men on me."
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