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6B / SPORTS / THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAN
Freshman running back Deshaun Sands is stopped by a shoe string tackle Friday against Southern Miss. The Jayhawks lost the game 31-16.
Freshmen RBs eager to prove they can handle the burden
FOOTBALL
BY COREY THIBODEAUX
cthibodeaux@kansan.com
twitter.com/c_cthibodeaux
As much as he stands by his hair, James Sims gets more flak than fellow freshman running back Deshaun Sands.
The two new go-to backs, who coach Turner Gill announced this week, stand out on the team, especially with their helmets off. Sands has a head full of spaghetti-like dreams. Sims said he gets called Kid 'n Play from "House Party" or Gerald from "Hey Arnold" because of his flat-top.
"Everyone knows about the little dreadlocks," Sims said. "No one has seen my hairstyle in Lawrence."
"It's my style," he said.
Originally, Sims said, he was going to cut his hairdo at the end of the year. But now, it looks as if it's here to stay.
As the only two players on the team with a rushing touchdown this season, the duo has a spark that the Jayhawks have lacked in the running game.
"If they want to put it on our backs," Sands said, "we'll carry it."
At the beginning of the season, Gill said he wanted to have an every-down type of back capable of 20 to 25 carries per game. With a running game that averages 3.2 yards per carry on the season, Kansas needs all the help it can get.
Sims said if given the opportunity, he would be able to carry the team with 20 carries a game. Anything the coaches need out of him, he said, he'll do.
Senior lineman Brad Thorson said he likes the rushing-by-committee better than putting the load all on Sims.
"He's young." Thorson said. "He can't last the whole season taking 20 to 30 carries."
According to players, Sims and Sands won't be the only running backs with significance. Most of the guys are still looking at senior running back Angus Quigley, who was thought to be the feature back earlier this season, to be a steady force in the backfield.
After being sacked 10 times in
three games, freshman quarterback Jordan Webb is all for a crowded backfield to take the pressure off.
acknowledged that he "The more the merrier," he said.
And to a certain extent, the running backs have something to prove. Quigley is trying to earn his playing time back. Sims is responding to a rough outing against Southern Miss when it took him 20 carries to reach 74 yards. Sands just wants to score when it actually matters.
"I felt like my first touchdown was nothing," he said.
Sands had a touchdown against Southern Miss when they were already down 21-3. Even though it was early in the third quarter, he said it was basically garbage-time.
But Sands was all smiles this week. Sims was battered after practice Wednesday, but still upbeat. If all goes as planned, they will be a ferocious tandem for the layhawks in a couple years. Maybe by that time, they will have a name for themselves like duos in the NFL.
"We're in the lab thinking of something." Sands said.
Though undefeated, Big 12 teams face challenge to climb up AP poll
- Edited by Clark Goble
BIG 12 FOOTBALL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NORMAN, Okla. - When Big 12 football fans take a quick glimpse at the top of the rankings, there's something missing.
Three weeks into the season and with seven teams still undefeated, the conference doesn't have a team in the top 5. No. 6 Nebraska, No. 7 Texas and No. 8 Oklahoma are there waiting in the wings, but each has some work to do to get into the mix for the national championship.
The presence of No. 3 Boise
State and No. 4 TCU has the Big 12 in an unusual situation. Not since 2006, when Texas and Oklahoma each suffered early losses, has the league failed to have a top 5 team in the AP poll three weeks into the season.
That could start sorting itself out after Texas and Oklahoma play in Dallas on Oct. 2 and the Longhorns visit Nebraska two weeks later. If any of those three teams are still unbeaten, the wins could result in a bump in the polls — and in the BCS standings, when they come out Oct. 17.
"Long term, if you have an unde feated Big 12 team, there's no doubt in my mind they will finish ahead of Boise in the BCS and probably ahead in the polls," BCS analyst Jerry Palm said.
The same goes for TCU. With three teams in the top 10, there's enough power in the Big 12 that anyone who can run the table will move up over time.
“It’s hard to go undefeated.” Texas defensive end Sam Acho said. “We know that if we focus on what we have to do, everything will work out.”
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Because of closer-than-expected wins early this season, Oklahoma and Texas have each fallen in the AP poll despite starting the season 3-0. The Sooners edged Utah State 31-24 and Air Force 27-24, with a blowout win against Florida State in between. The Longhorns fell even after winning at Texas Tech, where they had lost in three of their last six visits.
Meanwhile, Nebraska racked up perhaps the conference's most impressive win with a 56-21 rout at Washington and leapfrogged the other two Big 12 schools. Yet there's still more work to do to get into the two coveted positions at the top.
"There are some things you can't control, and that's one of them," Huskers coach Bo Pelini said. "All you can do is play the best football
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you can. That's something, there's no way you have any control over. All you can control is winning as many games as you can."
But there's a scenario where even that may not be enough, Palm said.
"For a Big 12 team, it's just win all of your games. If anybody can do that, whether it's Texas, Oklahoma or Nebraska, they're going to be in the national championship discussion," he said.
"Nobody's catching Alabama or Ohio State. Nobody's catching those two. If they finish undefeated and a Big 12 team finished undefeated, then they're Auburn."
Auburn famously got left out when it went undefeated through the 2004 season, with unbeaten USC and Oklahoma teams playing for the title in the Orange Bowl.
Early on, though, the Big 12 has been holding its ground. Its 27-5 record in nonconference play is the best of any league in the country, even if some of the wins haven't been impressive. By comparison, the league was 23-9 in nonconference play and there were only four undefeated teams left at this point last year.
Oklahoma State, Texas A&M,
Missouri and Kansas State are also
unbeaten through three games.
"If you look, you'll see that most coaches in our league will tell that you better be ready to play every week because there's enough guys that are making plays on offense and guys that can shut you down on defense if you're not prepared," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said.
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