4B
OKLAHOMA 45, KANSAS 31
FOOTBALL WRAPUP
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2008
Jon Goering/KANAN
Senior comerback Kendrick Harper misses a tackle on Oklahoma receiver Jauga Iglesias during the first half of the game. Iglesias torched the Jayhawk secondary for 10 receptions and 178 yards in the first half. He ended the game with 12 catches and 191 yards. Oklahoma gained 674 total yards in the game.
FOOTBALL
Secondary surrenders record passing game from Bradford
BY TAYLOR BERN tbern@kansan.com
NORMAN, Okla. — Manuel Johnson, Oklahoma's leader in catches, receiving yards and touchdowns, left during the first drive of Saturday's game with one catch for 21 yards and a severely injured left arm.
"I really didn't notice at all." Kansas safety Darrell Stuckey said.
He never returned, but it didn't seem to matter.
Bradford's 468 yards and three touchdowns spurred Oklahoma to its 22nd consecutive home victory, a 45-31 triumph over Kansas.
Without its leader, a Sooner receiving corps as deep as the Grand Canyon helped quarterback Sam Bradford accumulate the most single game passing yards in school history.
"I'm really impressed with Sam Bradford," coach Mark Mangino said. "He's everything they said he would be and more."
The Sooners piled up 419 total yards by halftime and senior wide receiver JuAquia Iglesias — whose stats entering the weekend were second only to Johnson — set single-half school records with 10 catches for 178 yards. Iglesias finished with 12 grabs for 191 yards.
"Sam had an incredible day and Juuaquin had one of the best days ever here," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said.
Stuckey said his secondary unit
In his third game back from injury, cornerback Kendrick Harper's duty on Saturday was to keep Igliesias in check. Obviously that didn't go as planned, but Mangino was reluctant to substitute anyone else into his place or move cornerback Chris Harris over to the other side.
"We can't afford to be thin where we can't rotate guys," Mangino said. "We tried to give our linebackers a bit of a blow today. In the secondary, we just don't have that luxury"
failed to remain in its coverages and keep on top of its assigned receivers.
Eventually, Mangino put freshman Corrigan Powell into the game. Powell was one of three freshmen to play cornerback in Harper's absence.
Powell appears to be the future at cornerback, but Mangino said he's not comfortable starting him in the present.
"It's one of those things where you go into the game knowing what you have to do, so that's never an excuse," Stuckey said.
"We've been working with some younger kids who we think are on the cusp of helping us, but we'll see," Mangino said. "We can't put them out there if they're not ready."
Kansas' lack of depth forced guys like Stuckey and safety Justin Thornton to play almost every defensive snap.
The secondary struggled to get a handle on Iglesias all day, but the biggest problem was that he wasn't
the only one killing them.
While Kansas' Dezmon Briscoe was the only show in town for the Jayhawks' passing attack, Iglesias was responsible for just 41 percent of Bradford's yards and he didn't catch any of his three touchdowns.
"We feel our best asset is using all of them and making them defend all of them," Stoops said. "Sam does a great job with his reads and getting the ball to the guy who is most open."
Stuckey entered the postgame press conference with a black eye from practice this week, but it symbolized the beating Kansas' secondary and its leader took. The Jayhawks didn't play well enough to win, but Stuckey said he can learn more from a loss than a win.
"Even when you win, you go back and look at film and see the mistakes you made." Stuckey said. "You still learn more from those mistakes than the times you succeeded."
Stuckey said that a loss makes or breaks a team. Now sacked with two defeats, it's time to find out what Kansas, and its secondary, is made of.
"Anytime you look back on your life when you made a mistake or failed, you always remember how you failed or what you did to make yourself fall," Stuckey said. "It's kind of hard to critique when you did things perfectly."
Edited by Rachel Burchfield
Junior safety Darrell Stuckey trips up Oklahoma kick return DeMarco Murray during the opening kickoff return Saturday. Coach Mangino said after the game that special teams was one area where the Jayhawks improved this week.
Jon Goerina/KANSAN
FOOTBALL
(CONTINUED FROM 1 B)
"We had some opportunities," Sharp said. "But at the end of the day, we came up short."
No. 4. Sooners.
Kansas scored a first-quarter touchdown on a one-yard run by Crawford, the first touchdown a team has scored in the first quarter against Oklahoma all season. In fact, Oklahoma had outscored its opponents 110-6 in the opening quarter minutes before the Jayhawks matched the team at 7-7 going into the second quarter on Saturday. Kansas was close to tying the game at 14 in the second quarter before Reesing was intercepted at the two-yard line to end a potential scoring drive. It was Reesing's second interception of the game and meant that — along with a Jacob Branstetter field goal on their next drive — the Jayhawks scored only three points on two trips to the red zone in the first half.
"When you're playing a really good football team like Oklahoma, you can't make many mistakes," Mangino said.
Still, Kansas trailed 24-17 at the half despite the two turnovers and allowing 419 yards to quarterback Sam Bradford and the Sooner offense. Bradford passed for a school-record 468 yards, with 313 of those yards coming in the 30 minutes of the game.
Mangino stressed all week that his team would need to play smart football to compete with the vaunted Sooners in Norman. After having just one penalty in the first half, Kansas had six penalties for 62 yards in the second half.
"With all the turnovers we had and the big difference in yards they had, we were only down seven," said Dezmon Briscoe, who had a school-record 12 catches for 269 yards and two touchdowns. "We were like, 'Hey, we're still in this.' We never once doubted ourselves or hung our heads."
"Any time you're playing in a big game against a good opponent, any penalty and turnover is going to be magnified." Reeing said.
Reeing was 24-41 for 342 yards but was sacked a seasonhigh five times and had the two key interceptions in the first half.
The Kansas defense struggled to even slow down Bradford and the Oklahoma offense. The Sooner's leading receiver Manuel Johnson left with a broken arm in the first quarter, but Oklahoma didn't miss a beat. Oklahoma had 674 yards of offense.
Kansas fell to 5-2 on the season but remained the only team in the Big 12 North with a winning record at 2-1. Four teams — Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas State — are all 1-2 and Iowa State is 0-3.
In the end, it was a shootout and Kansas just couldn't keep up.
"We gave it our best shot," Mangino said. "Our kids played their tails off. A couple plays here, a couple plays there and you give yourself a chance."
"It's not like we came out and got upset," Reesing said. "People thought we were going to lose by 20 points so we did better than most people expected. We're still in the thick of things in the Big 12 North. We have to learn from it and come out ready to play next week."
— Edited by Adam Mowder
Junior running back Jake Sharp outruns the Oklahoma defense during a first-half carry Saturday at M in punts.
notes
FINALLY SOME TRICKERY
On the jayhawk's first play of a drive from their own 36 yard line early in the second quarter, quarterback Todd Reesing handed the ball off to running back Jake Sharp. Sharp gave the ball to Meier for what looked to be a reverse. But Meier pulled up and looked for a receiver downfield. The deep receivers were covered, but Meier found Dexton Fields for a 15-vard gain.
It took seven games, but we finally saw the Kerry Meier wide receiver pass that we knew was coming at some point.
The Jayhawks used a couple of other trick plays, including a reverse to Dezmon Briscoe that was good for
a 13-yard gain and a first dow third quarter.
SPECIAL TEAMS IMPROVED
After struggling with field during the first six games of the Kansas special teams unit much better on Saturday, Runni Jocques Crawford took over as the kick returner and returned his firs kickoff return for a team season. 42 vards.
Jacob Branstetter also na 23-yard field goal in the second after missing a kick last week Colorado.
Memorial Stad
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