THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008
SPORTS
3B
FOOTBALL (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
returned.
Harper, now a senior, returned from his preseason arm injury to play in seven games. A junior college transfer, Harper started three games and filled in as a nickel back in the other four contests. At 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds, Harper doesn't have the size or speed of Talib, but is a sure tackler who is quick to the ball in run defense.
Should Harris or Harper suffer an injury, Kansas holds several talented cornerback reserves. Junior cornerback Anthony Webb is the Jayhawks' lone four-star recruit and has played in 22 college games. Freshmen Anthony Davis and Isiah Barfield should battle for the second backup spot. Barfield made four tackles in the spring scrimmage.
"From Webb, to Barfield, to Anthony Davis, we're just real deep," Harris said. "Everybody somewhere has had a little bit of experience, so those guys could easily play with the ones"
spring depth chart
The Jayhawk depth chart is also brimming with talent at the safety position. Junior safety Darrell Stuckey, one of Kansas' most consistent players last season, will
Defensive backfield
cornerback
» Chris Harris, 6-0,180,
sophomore
» Anthony Webb, 6-0,185,
junior
» Kendrick Harper, 5-9,190,
senior
» Isiah Barfield, 6-0,175,
redshirt freshman
safety
Justin Thornton, 6-1, 202,
junior
Phillip Strozier, 6-0, 196,
sophomore
Strong safety
Darrell Stuckey, 6-1, 205,
junior
Olalitan Oguntodu, 6-0,
220, sophomore
shift to strong safety to make room for junior Justin Thornton at free safety. Thornton emerged late last season as a starter and made five interceptions.
Though sophomore safeties Olatan Oguntodu and Phillip Strozier both lined up on the white team, usually meant for backups, during the spring game, each could see time in Kansas' pass-defense package. The Jayhawks often use three safeties in third-and-long situations, and Oguntodu is the sort
of 220-pound bruiser who could help the team's pass rush.
"There are various packages," Kansas coach Mark Mangino said. "So a lot of those kids in the white are going to play a lot and have big roles in the defense, and that's good — it means we have depth. We need to have depth so we can play well for four quarters."
—Edited by Madeline Hyden
NASCAR
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NASCAR driver A.J. Allmendinger has struggled this season, including failing to qualify for the first three races of the season. After a five-race hiatus, Allmendinger is set to return to the No. 83 this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.
Allmendinger gears up for his return Tough season builds driver's confidence for season debut
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - AJ Allmendinger had his heart broken twice in a 10-minute span earlier this season.
First, Red Bull Racing told the second-year driver they were temporarily pulling him from his ride.
Then Brett Favre, his hero announced his retirement.
"I swear I almost burst into tears when they told me about Favre," he remembered. "I was like 'This just ain't my day.'"
Nor were the next six weeks.
Allmendinger was forced to watch from the pit box as Mike Skinner took over the No. 84 Toyota to help Red Bull correct the struggling program. Allmendinger had failed to qualify for the first three races of the season, leaving the team at the bottom of the standings and unsure how to fix it behind Allmendinger's limited NASCAR knowledge.
A former star in the now-defunct Champ Car Series, Allmendinger struggled through his rookie season last year. He made 17 of 36 races, finished 30th or lower in 13 of his starts and never got enough seat time to get a proper feel for stock cars.
New general manager Jay Frye said he believed the best fix was putting an experienced veteran behind the wheel.
"Mike was able to help fix it, and it has AJ postured to come back in a better situation than he was in before." Frye said. "The team has made six races in a row, so it has data, a playbook, so to speak.
"And he did a terrific job of coaching and mentoring and showing AJ the ropes. AJ should be better, too, because sometimes you have to take a step back and watch and understand to figure out what you need to do going forward."
Allmendinger's scheduled to make his season debut this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.
"I'm pumped up, bouncing around like a little school girl, and I think I've been quite annoying to the entire team," Allmendinger said.
Although Allmendinger struggled with the emotions of being benched, the experience helped build his confidence and assured him he wasn't as clueless about the cars as he had feared.
"Absolutely, I'd agree with that," Frye said. "But it's in a good way."
Because Red Bull entered
NASCAR the same time as Allmendinger, the team wasn't fully prepared to provide the driver with the learning curve he needed.
It became a maddening cycle of futility as the car missed races and neither Allmendinger nor Red Bull knew how to help each other fix it.
》 OLYMPICS
Everest climb endangers reporters
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Climbers walk up the snow slope along the North Ridge of Mount Everest. New, restrictive plans that China has for foreign media who are covering the Olympic torch's ascent of Mount Everest expose reporters to undue health risks and show Beijing's worries about reporting in tense Tibet, health experts and media groups said Wednesday.
Altitude of torch relay's new leg may make media coverage unsafe
BEIJING — China's new plan for press coverage of the Olympic torch's ascent of Mount Everest has touched off a new controversy.
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Health experts and media groups said Wednesday the plan will expose reporters to undue health risks due to the altitude.
"To take a week or two, it's acceptable, and to take three days, it's ridiculous," said Dr. Robert Schoene, a mountaineer and expert on altitude sickness at University of California-San Diego. "If you take low-landers
Under the new schedule introduced by Beijing Olympic officials Tuesday, reporters' time in Tibet would be halved, to about 10 days, most of it in transit. The trip from Beijing, just above sea level, to the Everest base camp at 16,800 feet would be compressed
to three days — a third of the adjusting time experts recommend to ward off the sometimes fatal effects of sudden exposure to low oxygen levels at high altitude.
It also underscores Beijing's worries about reporting in Tibet and adds another sour note to what Beijing hoped would be a grand feat — taking the torch up the world's tallest peak. Like the entire torch relay, the event has become more contentious after last month's protests of Chinese rule in Tibet, where Everest stands.
who are healthy, almost everybody, at least 80 to 90 percent, would get acute mountain sickness in three days."
The plan drew complaints from most of the nine foreign media organizations invited to Everest, including The Associated Press.
The journalists expressed concern about the health risks in a letter to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee. BOCOG replied it "was carefully studying and considering" the request for more time to adjust and agreed to leave Friday, 24 hours earlier than proposed.
It was not clear if the additional day would make a difference. Organizers have said the mountaineering team at Everest base camp might set out as early as Saturday, weather permitting. That would put the group on track to reach the summit May 1, a holiday in China.
The rushed schedule underscores Beijing's unease over Tibet and fears that the presence of foreign reporters could incite more
protests.
Tibet and Tibetan communities across a large slice of western China remain closed to foreign reporters following the widest, most sustained uprising by Tibetans against Chinese rule in nearly 50 years. Twice in the past month, government-arranged tours for foreign media have been disrupted by protesting Buddhist monks.
"What is the Chinese government hiding behind Tibet's closed doors?" the Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday. The group and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists cited the shortened schedule of the Everest torch relay as a worrying sign of lack of access to Tibet
mg sight of lack or access to Tibet. Officials have been vague about when the ascent would be made, saying it would likely be in May. The reticence is partly due to unpredictable Himalayan weather at the 29,035-foot peak.