Volume 125 Issue 20
kansan.com
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
COMMENTARY
Now is the time to fix problems
A BRIGHT SEASON
These first four games were supposed to give Kansas football a chance for some victories before getting blasted away during the Big 12 conference season.
All hope looked to be lost after the Rice loss.
Then some confidence came back after sticking with TCU in the conference opener.
As diehard Kansas fans tuned in to the game on their laptops on Saturday to catch glimpses of the game on ESPN3, there was hope for a win.
What did come through clear, regardless of the picture quality, is this Jayhawk team might improve this year, but it might not get any better in the win column.
These first four games were the chance to set the tempo for the season. Now, it's going to be difficult to get off the path the lavhawks are going down.
The good news is the team has a bye week to think about its problems.
They can figure out why two double-digit fourth quarter leads were squandered against two teams from Conference USA and the Mid-American Conference.
Edited by Laken Rapier
The outlook looks pretty bleak, and if the.e's any chance of this turning into something, it will have to come together on this bye week.
They can figure out why senior quarterback Dayne Crist continues to struggle throwing the football, and why the offensive line completely collapsed around that same quarterback during the second half against Northern Illinois.
Many more questions remain that will try to be answered, in the end it doesn't matter.
The fact is Kansas has one win, and it was against South Dakota State. Unless something crazy happens, that doesn't seem like it will change.
Kansas fans knew this 2012 was going to be a slow and gutwrenching season, and now comes the most difficult part: the conference schedule.
Every week the Jayhawks will see Big 12 teams looking to take advantage of playing the Kansas Jayhawks.
Somehow, in the next week, Kansas must find a way to become a tougher team. They have to find a way to get respect from the rest of this conference going forward.
Will this be another winless conference schedule, or will the Jayhawks find a way to win another game this season?
The only way the Jayhawks will gain that kind of respect is by playing like they did against TCU. No matter how many games they lose, the effort has to be there.
Putting out the effort will be difficult for Kansas, especially since it will be underdogs in the rest of its games.
Now comes the difficult part to swallow for Kansas and its fan base.
Kansas runners lead the group at the 5k race at the Bob Timmons Classic on Sept. 1 at Rim Rock Farm. The Kansas women finished the race with the top three places.
TARA BRYANT/KANSAN
LEADING THE PACK
After a promising first race, freshmen on the women's cross country team have high hopes
I MAX GOODWIN
mgoodwin@kansan.com
It was the first cross country race of the season: the Bob Timmons Classic at Rim Rock Farm. The Kansas women's team featured three Jayhawks wearing the blue uniforms for the first time.
Assistant coach Michael Whittlesey previously said this freshman class for the women's team was the best he has recruited in his four years at Kansas.
But, before the race, Hannah Richardson, a freshman from Kirkwood, Mo., wasn't as sure as to how it was going to work.
She turned to her teammate, redshirt Hayley Francis, a freshman from Lawrence, and asked "What are you going to do?"
She wasn't alone, as Francis felt the same way.
"I had no idea what to think of it" Richardson said.
Their cluelessness is now laughable because both freshmen finished in the top five of the race. Richardson in second, Francis in fifth, and in between the two was another Kansas freshman, Sara Sewald, finishing in third.
They figured it out all right.
Whittlesey said since he's been
"We figured it out," Francis said.
at Kansas, there has not been a freshman he thought had a chance of being in the top five runners of the team.
In the first meet, three of the top four runners were freshmen, and teammate Kyra Kilwein, a senior from Lawrence, won the race.
Richardson admitted she still feels a bit clueless as to how things will play out in her freshman year. But her 6k time of 19:07.7 is an indication that she knows how to run a race. This could be the beginning of four big years for she and the Kansas women's cross country team.
"Really, my goal is just to be the best I can be and see what
happens," Richardson said. "And see what coach Whitt can do with me."
Richardson seems to epitomize the characteristics that Whittlesey said he looks for when recruiting distance runners — levelheaded and competitive, with high expectations.
There is room for mistakes by freshmen at this point, as long as they are aggressive mistakes, Whittlesey said, who prefer a runner start too fast in the first mile than too slow.
"I always tell freshmen, 'Hey, you have a year or two to make aggressive mistakes,' Whittlesey said. "I never have a problem with
a freshman making an aggressive mistake"
A lot remains for them to learn. Francis said she has not run competitively in two years because of injuries. Richardson has yet to set a time to break, because she still doesn't know what a good 6k time is.
"I don't think any of us expected that we would have as much depth as we do," Francis said. "So, I think it's just really exciting, we all do our part and then we see what happens when we put that all together."
—Edited by Laken Rapier
FOOTBALL
Team will reflect during bye week
nfordyce@kansan.com
NATHAN FORDYCE
After the third straight tough loss, the Kansas Jayhawks football team heads into a bye week still searching for answers.
The Jayhawks lost to the Northern Illinois Huskies 30-23 after holding the lead late in the game. The stagnation of the offense in the fourth quarter hurt the Jayhawks' chances of coming out with a much-needed victory.
Kansas head coach Charlie Weis stated his displeasure on the Big 12 teleconference call on Monday.
about Northern Illinois.
Weis has been around football for the majority of his life; he realizes that bye weeks aren't always a good thing, especially for a team that has been struggling over consecutive weeks.
"The defense was just holding on for dear life," Weis said. "That's not good against a team that moves the ball that efficiently."
"It's never good to go into a bye after a loss, because you have two weeks to think about it instead of just one," Weis said. "But I think we kind of got that game out of our system yesterday. That's why we
practice on Sundays, because the best way to get something out of them is to get them back on the field because they are creatures of habit."
Weis
Weis also said that the Jayhawks need to be smarter this week when it comes to developing the team and addressing the No. 7 Kansas State Wildcats.
When it comes to the in-state rival Wildcats, Weis acknowledged
One of the answers might come from the backfield in junior James Sims. On Saturday against Northern Illinois, Sims played his first game since being suspended for violating teams rules during the offseason.
that the two teams are on complete different spectrums when it comes to this football season.
"They're sitting there ranked seventh and undefeated," Weis said. "We're sitting here 1-3 and trying to find answers going against one of the best teams in the country."
Even though Sims didn't start,
"He's a physical runner and when we lost Taylor Cox early in the game, thank God James was there," Weis said. "Because his workload actually started picking up more than what it was designed to be"
he had a huge effect, rushing for 91 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries. Sims proved to be vital despite not being in the original game plan.
Edited by Whitney Bolden
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