Volume 125 Issue 12
kansan.com
Thursday, September 6, 2012
COMMENTARY
Crist looks to improve
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Crist battled knee injuries at Notre Dame and was benched at halftime of the season-opener last year, struggling to find the field the rest of the season. The chance for Crist to start — and start for the coach who originally recruited him — was too tempting. He arrived in Lawrence with the task of rejuvenating a team coming off a historically bad season and starting from square one with new faces all around the program.
The offseason hype surrounding Kansas quarterback Dayne Crist was larger than any Kansas recruit in years. The former five-star high school recruit had graduated from Notre Dame and was looking for a fresh start with Charlie Weis, the coach who recruited him in 2009 but never coached him for an entire season.
In his debut against South Dakota State last Saturday, nerves seemed to rule the day for Crist, who overthrew open targets and never looked completely comfortable in the pocket.
"I think there were just a lot of throws that I left on the field," Crist said at Tuesday's press conference.
Coach Weis said he didn't think Crist was pressing and didn't think he was nervous at all in his debut last Saturday. But like Crist, Weis thinks his starting quarterback has plenty to improve on going into Saturday. And if Kansas fans have any dreams of drastic improvements this season, improvements from Crist are a must.
"For me it was all about accuracy" Crist said. "I am much more accurate than the way that I played."
"I'm always striving to be as close to perfection as possible," Crist said. "I was very far from it on Saturday, and I'm going to do everything in my power to do better."
Great chemistry between a new quarterback and his wide receivers is a rarity, and the miscues in week one shouldn't surprise anyone. But as the season moves forward and the level of competition increases, fans should hope that offensive struggles were just early-season struggles and not something worse, like the possibility that the former All-Star recruit isn't all he was cracked up to be.
Edited by Sarah McCabe
He finished with 169 yards on 17-36 passing, adding a touchdown and an interception against an overmatched Jackrabbits defense. He was bailed out a few times against that defense as well, making a few throws that would have surely been intercepted by Big 12 defenses and probably taken back for six points.
"They have a lot more speed," Crist said of the Rice defense.
Crist noted a lack of efficiency with the offense, and it's something he said he wants to improve heading into Saturday afternoon against Rice.
The Owls struggled against UCLA last week, giving up 49 points and 303 passing yards to the Bruins, but they're a considerable step up in talent from South Dakota State.
SIT DOWN WITH SHEAHON
ZENGER'S FOOTBALL ROLE
Athletic director confident in coach Weis' ability to turn program around this season.
Sheahon Zenger picked coach Charlie Weis last December to lead the football program. Since taking over the job the two meet every Monday to catch up with each other and touch base for the week.
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
BLAKE SCHUSTER
bschuster@kansan.com
During the humid Kansas summer nights, it was easy for Sheahorn Zenger to get lost in Little League baseball games. With his family by his side and his sons in the field, the weight of a university would fade away — for a while at least.
It wouldn't take long for a Jayhawks fan to recognize the athletic director in the stands and strike up a conversation.
"Just when you think you've kind of escaped it, you're right back to talking about football," Zenger said, but he's not bothered by it. "Maybe I'm becoming too one-dimensional, but I'd just as soon talk about that as anything else."
It's a different conversation than the ones Zenger was having with Kansas fans in the previous months. There's a new tone, a mix of optimism and excitement, hope and wonder, and for the first time since the 2008 Orange Bowl season, pride in lajahaws football.
The casual conversations in the bleachers served as reminders that Kansas fans are eager for this season. It's also a reminder of what constantly fills Zenger and what watching his sons play baseball is supposed to melt away: pressure.
By bringing in a new staff and players from pastures Kansas never could graze before, first-year coach Charlie Weis has assembled football's version of Dr. Frankenstein's nonster, which makes Zenger the equivalent of Mary Shelly. No matter what happens in the Weis experiment, Zenger's name will forever be associated with it.
"I just want to see the people of the University of Kansas proud each and every day." Zenger said. "That's a burden that I carry daily."
At the time it felt like an eternity.
but when Zenger remembers his first full year on the job, he said it all happened in a blink: staving off conference realignment, firing and hiring a football coach, watching both basketball teams in lengthy tournament runs and rooting for a handful of Jayhawks in the Olympics.
"I look back and I'm as grateful as one can be in a situation like that," Zenger said. "What it did was really expedite my growth experience here as director of athletics, not just at the University of Kansas but also within our conference."
Even after hiring Weis — the turning point in an uneasy period for Kansas athletics — the pressure only grew. From the moment Weis pen met Kansas stationery, Weis and Zenger began spending countless hours together, but Zenger wasn't cozy right away.
"I've beer around him quite a bit since he was hired, and in the first few months it was more in an administrative nature." Zenger said. "You're talking about ways in which you're going to enhance the program, about recruiting, about staffing, that type of thing."
Along with the stress that came in hiring a big name coach, there was the speculation that accompanied it.
While searching for Turner Gill's replacement, Zenger often thought what this hire would feel like in six months. In eight months? Will the players perform better on the field? Can this new coach get players to act accordingly off of it? The answers are beginning to materialize.
The players came back from summer stronger and are doing better in the classroom, thus looking more like the team Jayhawk fans have longed for. It's all helped ease the pressure on Zenger, but there
are still games to be played, putting the stress back at full strength.
Throughout his four years as the assistant head coach at the University of Wyoming, Sheahon Zenger was big on repetition. It helped calm the nerves that came with game days.
"I've found that routine and repetition is the one thing that subsides that anxiety," Zenger said. "Because it's something you do every day, when you're done with it you feel prepared."
started a new routine for only him and the athletic director.
To make up for it, Charlie Weis
As an administrator, his routine has changed. Instead of watching warm-ups, Zenger has small talk with stakeholders. Instead of checking his game plan, he now takes pictures with alumni. Instead of giving a pep talk, he checks on the students.
"I specifically invited him to join me every Monday over in my office," Weis said. "I can keep him up to speed on everything that's happening, tell him how we played, who played well, who didn't play well, mental errors, whine a little bit and complain about the election."
"My job is to figure out what we're going to eat," Zenger joked. "It's more of a free-flowing conversation. I'll let him begin with his analysis of the previous game and then shift to his preparation for the next game. As a former coach, I'll enjoy that at a level that others might not."
The weekly meetings help keep Zenger close to his experiment without overstepping any boundaries.
Even as Weis explains the situation with the team, Zenger is only there to help him as an administrator, not a coach. The weekly chats should ease the athletic director's tensions while giving Weis an opportunity to use his staff and Zenger to collect resources beneficial to the team.
"That's something that I'm not sure that every coach would welcome, and he certainly does," Zenger said. "Often your interaction with the coach is through other group meetings or when you're together at practice — just briefly because you don't want to distract him during that time."
SEE ZENGER PAGE 6B
FOOTBALL
Defense prepares for next matchup
FARZIN VOUSOUGHIAN
fvousoughian@kansan.com
Beaming with confidence, the Kansas defense is in high spirits after creating five turnovers in last Saturday's win. But the Jayhawks know they have a greater task ahead when they host Rice on Saturday.
Rice's offensive line has a hefty left side. Sophomore left guard Ian Gray stands 6-foot-8, and beside him is junior tackle Jon Hodde at 6-foot-7. The Jahayhaws' defense is presented with — literally — a bigger challenge before them.
Senior safety Bradley McDougald runs the ball through South Dakota State's defense during Saturday. The Jayhawks won 31-17.
"It's a different size offensive line," said Toben Opurum, senior defensive end and captain. "This team is more of a zone-blocking team, and they kind of move more laterally, wanting to create bigger space for their backs. It's just a different style, and you've got to be able to adjust week in and week out with these different teams that you play"
\SHLEIGH LEE/KANSAN
The Jayhawks' defensive line managed to create problems for South Dakota State quarterbacks Eric Kline and Austin Summer last week. The defense studied game film on Rice's junior quarterback Taylor McHargue, who could create some trouble for Kansas.
In the loss against UCLA last week, McHargue threw the ball 28 times and scrambled 22 times. McHargue's rushing numbers were higher than the running backs for Rice. He took advantage of the size and muscle Rice's offensive line provided for him by scrambling behind them to gain most of his yards on the ground.
Kansas must stop him from advancing the ball on his own by keeping him in the pocket this Saturday.
"He's a good athlete," said Josh Williams, senior defensive end. "The biggest thing is going to be that he's a scramblem. But we have to contain him and be fundamentally sound in our rush lanes and do things that we are supposed to do."
Kansas defensive coordinator Dave Campo was pleased with the effort his players showed last week. He believes Rice will bring the best offense that his defense will see before conference play gets underway in two weeks.
"I think they're a good football team," Campo said. "They can be explosive. That's the type of team we are going to face every week.
For us, this is a really good challenge, a good test, and we'll kind of see where we are at after this ball game in my opinion defensively."
With a versatile quarterback like McHargue, Campo is preparing his defense to be ready for their quarterback to do anything at any time.
Kansas must find a way to provide a pass rush, which will be key in limiting McHargue.
"I think we are still continuing to do a few different things to help
Campo and his players are confident that their defense can make strides this week when they go up against McHargue and the Rice offense. As athletic and fast as McHargue is, Campo knows if his players do their jobs correctly, it will be hard for Rice to move the
the pass rush," Campo said. "If we can get to guys with a four-man rush, that's what we're going to do. I think we have some guys that have some talent, and we just have to utilize it."
football on the lavhawks' defense.
"I think we just have to make sure that we take care of our lane of responsibility," Campo said. "In the running game, we've got to have good gap control and make sure whose got the quarterback and the pitch if they run an option. We have to make sure our lane integrity is good. We have to play with a lot of zone eyes and see when he takes off"
- Edited by Laken Rapier