The Kansas volleyball team continues a rough stretch of games as No.5 Texas comes to town Saturday.
KANSAS HAR
The Kansas football team heads to Toledo tonight for the first road game of the season. Our Gameday page will get you ready. 6B
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2006 WWW.KANSAN.COM
TOLEDO
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
PAGE 1B
THE TRUTH
Big 12 North's weekend games crucial to credibility
BY DEJUAN ATWAY
KANSAN SPORTS COLUMNIST
DATWY@KANSAN.COM
There has been talk around the country from so-called experts that this could be the biggest college football weekend in the last 10 or 15 years. But it's an even bigger weekend for the Big 12 North.
The top half of the Big 12 map has been treated with the same amount of respect that Screech from "Saved by the Bell" gets at Hollywood casting sessions.
Kansas will be on the road to face the Toledo Rockets as the team tries to capture that elusive fourth road win in Mark Mangino's four-plus years as head coach. Kansas State plays Marshall, and while it is by no means the same Marshall program that was spitting out NFL talent like Chad Pennington or Randy Moss, it's still a decent program that beat the Wildcats in Manhattan just a few years ago. Iowa State will battle in-state rival Iowa for supremacy of, well, whatever they do or have in Iowa.
Colorado will try to bounce back against Arizona State after two bad losses. Missouri will be looking for revenge against a New Mexico State team that came through Columbia and punked them last year. And finally, Nebraska travels to Los Angeles to take on Southern California in ABC's prime time match-up.
I'm not saying the Big 12 North will win all its games this weekend, but if the teams can come out and give a good showing while not getting blown out, that would be a step in the right direction. It would get the North some respect and credibility it sourely lacks at the present time.
Think about the respect the Big 12 North has now. An undefeated but unimpressive Kansas is an underdog to a winless Toledo team. Iowa State, the second best team in the North, is a two-touchdown underdog to Iowa. As the alleged best team in the North, odds makers say Nebraska shouldn't even make the trip to Los Angeles.
This might be the perfect season for a Big 12 North team to upset Texas, Texas Tech or Oklahoma. The Longhorns were defeated handily by the Buckeyes in Austin, Tech escaped with an overtime road victory against the University of Texas-El Paso and Oklahoma has looked less than stellar with Paul Thompson at quarterback.
The Big 12 was formed because of the money that could be made from a football-dominant conference. In the beginning of the Big 12, things were much more balanced, with the South and North splitting the first six championships. But the South has now won three of the last four by a combined score of 148-48.
I'm not saying it will happen, but I do expect the North to show some resolve and prove that good Big 12 football does not only reside in Texas and Oklahoma.
Edited by Erin Wiley
Kansan sportswriter DeJuan
Atway can be contacted at dat-
way@kansan.com.
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
FOOTBALL
UGLY ROAD RECORD HAUNTS KU
In last October's game in Manhattan, senior quarterback Adam Barmann prepares to throw as former Kansas State defensive end Tearrius George attempts to block him. The Jayhawks lost this game 12-3, and in the four years Mark Mangino has been coach, the team's Big 12 Conference road record is 1-12.
Under Mangino, Jayhawks have 3-17 mark away from home
BY RYAN SCHNEIDER
"They can read," Kansas' football coach said.
Mark Mangino had no need to remind his team this week of its recent history on the road.
There isn't much good news to fill them in on anyway.
Entering tonight's game at Toledo, Kansas is just 3-17 on the road under Mangino, including a 1-12 mark in the Big 12 Conference. The Jayhawks last road victory came in their 2004 season finale in Columbia, Mo. That's more than 23 months ago.
Despite the ugly road mark,
Kansas hasn't played as poorly as history suggests. Four of those 17 losses have come by single digits. The Jayhawks were in nearly all of last season's six road losses entering the fourth quarter.
"You've got to have that mental edge that you're going to finish this thing out," he said.
The lajhawks' problem hasn't been that they've been blown out. Instead, the problem is that the team has made just enough mistakes to lose the game.
Mangino said the way to change that trend was a simple change in attitude.
the program's past road struggles, players said Mangino focused on what they must do to change their fortunes away from Memorial Stadium.
Instead of reminding them of
— it only seats 26,000 — winning there won't be an easy task. The Rockets have won 34 of their last 36 games there, dating back to 1999. Included in that streak
"Coach talks about it every day," freshman linebacker Brandon Duncan said. "How we have to go out there and block everything out and be road dogs."
are victories against four Top 25 teams.
While Toledo's home, The Glass Bowl, won't be as large or rowdy as any stadium in the conference
On top of Toledo's success at home, several Kansas freshmen will play their first road game, including quarterback Kerry Meier, backup running back Jake Sharp and safety Olaitan Oguntodu.
Mangino said the first inclination about this season's first road game would be that his younger players would struggle. He's convinced they won't.
"Some of those kids are so young they haven't been in this situation," he said. "The triumph of the uncluttered mind."
SEE FOOTBALL ON PAGE 2B
SOCCER
High ranking fails to sway effort to improve
BY MARK DENT
Soccer fans will be rewarded with root beer floats for attendance and Kansas soccer players will rejoice in their first set of home games in three weeks.
"The girls are just excited to be back home and play in front of their family and friends," coach Mark Francis said.
Call it a mini celebration
No. 18 Kansas (4-1-0) plays host to Pepperdine today at 5 p.m. and takes the field against Central Florida at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Fans will receive free root beer floats at Sunday's game.
Unlike their root-beer-float drinking fans, the Jayhawks are not ready to start celebrating yet. Kansas did defeat Duke and Alabama last weekend to earn a No. 18 ranking in the Soccer American top 25 and a No. 20 ranking spot in the Soccer Times poll. But the team still wants to improve.
Jared Gab/KANSAN
SEE SOCCER ON PAGE 2B
Kate Johnson (left), No. 16 senior midfielder, runs against Holly Gault, No. 8 KU senior defender, and Michelle Rasmussen, No. 22 senior midfielder, during Kansas' victory against Furman in Lawrence on Aug. 25.
>> WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS
To improve, Kansas must win on road
1.7
BY B.J. RAINS
KANSAN SPORTS COLUMNIST
BRAINS@KANSAN.COM
During the past seven years, Kansas football has won only six road games.
No, you didn't misread; that was only six victories in 42 games, or a 6-36 record.
A team trying to be successful in the Big 12 has to be able to win on the road. Mark Mangino on the road is 3-17, including a winless season away from Memorial Stadium last year. There is no way that Kansas will have a successful season this fall unless it gets over that hump and finds a way to win on the road, and it starts with tonight's game against Toledo.
Toledo enters as a five-point favorite and has been dominant at home over the past few years. If Kansas could somehow win the game, it would set the stage for a potentially historic season. If Kansas returns and beats South Florida, it would travel to face nationally ranked Nebraska in Lincoln with a perfect 4-0 record, and it also would have some much-needed confidence having finally won a road game.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though, because tonight's game is going to be a lot harder than people think. I just can't figure out why it is so hard for the Jayhawks to win on the road. Yes, last year they did have a very tough road schedule, but the overall 3-17 mark under Mangino is terrible.
A team must win on the road if it wants to have a good season because it can't play all of its games at home. Conference play, when the jayhawks really need victories, has been even worse for them during the past 10 years. They are 3-33 since the start of the 1997 season.
"If anybody knew the answer to that, wed fix it as soon as we could," Ochoa said. "It's definitely a point of emphasis that we need to be better on the road if we're going to be a quality Big 12 team."
Athletics Director Lew Perkins may not have been concerned with Mangino's road record when he signed him to his new contract extension, but I am. Going 6-36 on the road is terrible, and I would not have extended Mangino's contract until he proved that he could overcome this hurdle.
"I really have no reason or explanation for it," safety Jerome Kemp said. "I don't know why we haven't won on the road. We won all of our home games last season but lost all of our road games. Any team is going to be more comfortable playing at home, so there is always that factor. But as far as our road games go, I just don't know."
Offensive lineman David Ochoa wants to know the answer, because he knows that they must overcome that hurdle this season if they want to be successful.
I asked a couple of players at Tuesday's press conference why the team has been so bad on the road but yet so good at home. Not even the players knew the answer.
Hopefully for Jayhawk fans, this season will be different and Mangino will find a way for his young bunch to start winning away from Memorial Stadium. If he doesn't, no one will need to include watching Kansas in a bowl game when making winter break plans.
Kansan sportswriter B.J. Rains is a St. Louis junior in journalism
Edited by Shanxi Upsdell
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