Ryan Wood of the Lawrence Journal-World reports that Kerry Meier has not recovered sufficiently from the shoulder injury he suffered in the third quarter last Saturday in Waco to play this Saturday against Colorado. Adam Barmann will make his fourth start of the year in place of the injured Meier.

Kansas struggled to run the ball after Barmann replaced Meier in the Baylor game. Barmann lacks the foot speed to pose any threat running the option which severely limits Kansas’s ground attack. (For some reason, Barmann’s lack of foot speed does not preclude OC Nick Quartaro from calling option plays or designed quarterback runs–see Barmann’s drive-killing fumbles against USF and Nebraska.)

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Real life will keep this preview brief as I forgo breaking down the numbers (check out cfbstats.com if you need those) for what figures to be a fairly basic matchup to preview.

• Kansas should try and run the ball as much as possible.
• Baylor will throw the ball (to the two-thirds of the field uninhabited by Aqib Talib) as much as possible.

First team to 30, wins.

Oklahoma State’s season thus far is split into two distinct halves with the first half consisting of their home games against Arkansas State and Florida Atlantic (as always I’m ignoring games played against I-AA opposition) which they won by a combined score of 83-15, and the second half consisting of their road losses at Houston and Kansas State. The particulars of those losses are as follows: the Cowboys lost 34-25 at Houston (where Houston was aided by getting a call that was not allowed, under the rules, to be reviewed overturned) and 31-27 at Kansas State (where Oklahoma State held a 27-17 lead with 4:25 to play).

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I get half-credit for correctly predicting A&M’s final score, right?

Of the Jayhawks, only Jon Cornish, Mike Rivera, and Scott Webb consistently took advantage of their opportunities to make plays. Adam Barmann reminded us all why he hasn’t been starting very many games the last two years. The offense’s struggles were not entirely Barmann’s fault (though his performance should preclude fans and media from further speculation that Kansas has two options at quarterback once Kerry Meier’s shoulder heals) as the offensive line reverted to mediocrity following a strong performance in Lincoln last week and (though it’s hard to say for certain when you’re watching a game broadcast by Fox Sports Net) I didn’t see a lot of wide-open receivers that Barmann was missing.

Like the offensive line, the defensive line put in its most credible performance of the season in Lincoln but could not repeat the performance against Texas A&M. To his credit, Defensive Coordinator Bill Young almost cobbled together a scheme to put consistent pressure on Stephen McGee without surrendering the long pass plays that have plagued the Kansas secondary this season. That Young had to rely on bringing safeties and/or linebackers on blitzes to create pressure ultimately left the Jayhawk defense (on the field for 76 plays on a day when Texas A&M only had to defend 59 times) vulnerable to a middle screen from McGee to L’Tydrick Riley that gained 35 yards on the final third-down play of Texas A&M’s winning touchdown drive.

It’s been a long time (10 years by my reckoning) since a Kansas football team has been good enough to disappoint its fans. Watching the close losses of the last couple of years, one got the sense that the team was playing close to its best and was simply not good enough to win the games. This year, by failing to take advantage of multiple opportunities to put games away at Toledo and Saturday at home against Texas A&M, a Kansas team that could have been making a case for which bowl they should play in and on the fringes of the Big 12 North race instead finds themselves on the fringes of bowl eligibility and winless, behind even Kansas State in the Big 12 North standings.

The Jayhawks need four wins in their last six games to assure a trip to a bowl game. (Anybody who thinks bowl organizers will be lining up to invite a 6-6 Kansas team is more optimistic than I.) Kansas has put themselves in a position where they both have to win all of their remaining home games (Oklahoma State, Colorado, Kansas State) and win one of their remaining road games (Baylor, Iowa State, Missouri). With half of the season completed, I’m not at all certain that this maddeningly inconsistent team can accomplish either of those feats.

Texas A&M comes to Lawrence for their first true road game of the year. The Aggies had no trouble with their three non-conference home opponents, beating The Citadel (I-AA), Louisiana-Lafayette, and Louisiana Tech by a combined score of 131-24. In between the Lousiana-Lafayette and Louisiana Tech laughers, Texas A&M traveled to San Antonio and struggled mightily against Army, making a goal-line stand in the final minute to win 28-24. Army set season-high marks in rushing yards, yards per carry, and total yards against the A&M defense. Army’s other four opponents have been Arkansas State, Kent State, Baylor, and Rice.

Texas A&M returned home last week and lost to Texas Tech 31-27 on a 37-yard Graham Harrell touchdown pass with 26 seconds remaining. Texas Tech outgained A&M by 80 yards, in no small part because Texas A&M SO QB (#7) Stephen McGee suffered a mild concussion in the second quarter but continued playing. McGee easily had his worst game of the year, but expects to be recovered from the effects by Saturday.

Rushing Offense

If McGee is healthy, he will cause problems for a Kansas defense that struggled to contain South Florida QB Matt Grothe on the ground. Unlike South Florida, A&M features a solid running back rotation of SO (#11) Jovorskie Lane, SR (#25) Courtney Lewis, and FR (#3) Mike Goodson.

Passing Offense

The concussion seemed to effect McGee’s passing. In his first three games against Division I opposition, McGee completed 69.7% of his passes without throwing an interception. Though the Texas Tech defense certainly provided a stiffer test than those of Louisiana Tech, Army, and Louisiana-Lafayette, McGee’s passing numbers cratered against the Red Raiders: 9-20, no touchdowns, one interception, for just 103 yards.

With the Kansas secondary struggling against any sort of vertical passing attack, look for McGee to try to get the ball downfield to SR WR (#14) Chad Schroeder who leads the team in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. JR WR/KR (#8) Kerry Franks may feature prominently in this game as a deep threat. McGee will also make ample use of SO TE (#13) Martellus Bennett and JR TE (#81) Joey Thomas. JR FB (#24) Chris Alexander has only four catches for 17 yards on the season, but two of those recepetions were for touchdowns.

Defense

Texas A&M is allowing over four yards per carry to their Division I opponents. Their pass defense numbers on the season as a whole flatter the unit as Army and Louisiana-Lafayette combined to go 19-44 with three interceptions, gaining 153 yards through the air. Louisiana Tech had some success throwing the ball. They completed just 40.6% of their passes, but gained 229 yards on just 13 completions. Texas Tech shredded the Aggie pass defense last Saturday in College Station to the tune of 32-45 for 392 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions.

JR DE (#92) Chris Harrington has three-and-a-half sacks and five tackles-for-loss this year. 2005 1st Team All-Big 12 SR LB (#10) Justin Warren easily leads the A&M defense in tackles. SO FS (#26) Devin Gregg is responsible for four (two interceptions, two fumble recoveries) of team’s eight takeaways.

Special Teams

Kerry Franks returned a kick 99 yards for a touchdown last week against Texas Tech. SO P (#16) Justin Brantly is averaging 49.5 yards on 15 punts, with four of those settling inside the 20 and only two touchbacks. FR PK (#7) Matt Szymanski lost the place-kicking job after making just one of four field goal attempts in the first three weeks of the season. SR PK (#32) Layne Neumann has been 3-3 since taking over, but he has not attempted a field goal longer than 32 yards this year. Szymanski and Neumann have combined for seven touchbacks over 34 kickoffs. A&M’s kick coverage team has limited opponents to 18.4 yards per kick return. Punt returners have fared better against the Aggies, returning nine of Brantly’s 15 punts for an average of 10.7 yards.

Prediction

There’s no reason to believe that Kansas can limit their mistakes sufficiently to win comfortably against a decent opponent. If Texas A&M continues to struggle against the run, Kansas will have a chance to control the game, especially if Kerry Meier starts. The porous A&M pass defense will struggle to contain the rejuvenated Adam Barmann should he make the start or be forced to relieve Meier for health reasons.

Stephen McGee must be expected to make plays against an inconsistent Kansas defense which will be missing Eric Washington. I expect another close game, the kind Kansas has been able to win (recently) at home but can never convert on the road.

Kansas 27 Texas A&M 21

It’s clear that we won’t know who is starting at quarterback for the Jayhawks much before the offense takes the field for the first time Saturday night. The time for excuses and procrastination has ceased. It’s time to prognosticate.

Nebraska 24 Kansas 13

Here’s what some others are predicting…

Corn Nation: Nebraska 40 Kansas 13

College Football News: Nebraska 38 Kansas 17

Bruce Feldman, ESPN Insider: Nebraska 35 Kansas 20

The Jayhawks are a horrible team on the road. Nebraska’s offense, the most prolific in the Big 12, matches up very well against one of the league’s worst defenses. Key stat: The Huskers are tops in the conference in turnover margin. Kansas is last. That’s a bad sign for a team with a very inexperienced QB playing on the road. Thing that has me sold: The opportunistic Huskers.

The staff of The Kansas City Star:
Blair Kerkhoff, Nebraska 31-10
Jason King, Nebraska 31-17
Derek Samson, Nebraska 40-15
Mike DeArmond, Nebraska 35-7
Howard Richman, Nebraska 26-9

Tim Griffin, San Antonio Express-News: Nebraska 49 Kansas 14

I don’t think there’s a whole lot the numbers can tell us about the Kansas-Nebraska matchup that we don’t already know, but I’ll offer them anyway.

Nebraska has yet to play a game they should win but could lose. That they refused to challenge their one worthy opponent further complicates attempts to gauge their true ability. The difference between USC’s 18 point win over Nebraska and their 36 point win at Arkansas came down to more than Nebraska’s ability to refrain from turning the ball over at every opportunity. Nebraska, looking for all the world like a team whose coach wanted nothing more than not to lose too badly, severely limited the number of plays either team ran. Against Arkansas and Arizona, USC ran 12 and 13 more plays, respectively, than they did against Nebraska. Against USC, Nebraska ran 16 fewer plays than they did against Troy and 31 fewer plays than they did against Lousiana Tech.

Furthermore, uncertainty over the identity of Kansas’s starting quarterback means that we don’t know whether Nebraska’s run defense or their pass defense will be under more pressure on Saturday night.

For a good preview of the game from a Nebraska perspective, check out Double Extra Point.

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Rushing Offense/Defense

South Florida’s ground game (read: QB Matt Grothe and WRs Ean Randolph and Amarri Jackson) had their best performance of the season (113 yards, 3.9 ypc, 1 TD) against the best defense they’ve faced. The yards and yards-per-carry surrendered were the highest of the season by the KU defense.

The parenthetical above, however, might augur well for the Jayhawk run defense in future games. When handing the ball off to a running back, South Florida gained just 16 yards on eight carries. With their top two running backs unavailable through injury and suspension and their remaining backs unable to contribute, South Florida, to their credit, created a viable running game. QB Grothe (when not being sacked) ran 15 times for 78 yards. WRs Randolph and Jackson combined to run around the end 3 times for 31 yards.
Future Kansas opponents may explore similarly unconventional approaches to the running game if they too find that lining up and running the ball at Kansas proves difficult.

The Jayhawks obviously missed Kerry Meier’s presence when running the football. Jon Cornish had another fine performance running the ball but nobody was able to replace the 48+ yards per game Meier contributed in his three starts. (Meier’s contribution in the first three games is actually greater than that, hence the plus sign. He gained 48 yards per game on the ground after yards lost on sacks are included thanks to the NCAA’s counterintutive approach to maintaining official rushing stats.) Adam Barmann ran three times for four yards (losing one fumble) while Brandon McAnderson and Jake Sharp each carried the ball twice, gaining seven and six yards respectively.

Passing Offense/Defense

In his first two starts, South Florida QB Matt Grothe completed 61.7% of his passes for 507 yards (8.45 ypa) with four touchdowns and three interceptions. Against Kansas Grothe completed half of his passes for 196 yards (5.8 ypa) with no touchdowns and two interceptions.

On September 9th, Kansas allowed 377 passing to Louisiana-Monroe. Over the last two weeks, Kansas has allowed Toledo and South Florida to throw for a combined 332 yards on 81 attempts. I shall now rank the reasons for this vast, sudden improvement of the pass defense in order of importance.

• Aqib Talib
• Lousiana-Monroe caught the Kansas coaching staff by surprise. The young Jayhawk defenders were ill-prepared for the WarHawk attack. (Jerome Kemp, in the LJW on Sept. 10th: “…we were kind of caught off guard. Looking at the tape of Alcorn, they came out, basically, with an almost totally different offense.“
• Increased playing time for true freshman CB Anthony Webb, who made his first start against South Florida.

When the Jayhawks had the ball, they were in the capable hands of Adam Barmann. Yes, I was most pleasantly surprised, too. Barmann, against a fine, fast defense, completed over 70 percent of his passes for 273 yards with no interceptions. Barmann’s numbers are all the more impressive when one takes into account the thoroughness with which South Florida eliminated Jon Cornish from the passing game.

Just over 20 percent of Kerry Meier’s passing yards came on throws to Cornish. I think it’s reasonable to give Cornish most of the credit for those gains. South Florida held Cornish to 14 yards on six receptions. Only 5 percent of Barmann’s passing yards were attributable to screens, shovels, or dump-offs to Kansas’s premier offensive threat.

It’s hard to determine on television (especially when the game is broadcast by Fox Sports Net with upwards of three camera angles available) how much credit should go to Barmann and how much should go to the Jayhawk receivers for getting open. Either way, after two years of debating whether the quarterbacks or receivers were more to blame for Kansas’s passing woes, I welcome this new conundrum into the discussion.

Special Teams

I anticipated excitement one way or the other in the punting game but none developed. South Florida failed to take advantage of the two punts (one a quick-kick by QB Grothe) they downed deep in Kansas territory. Dangerous punt returners Ean Randolph and Brian Murph combined for 11 return yards on three attempts.

Jim Leavitt prevented any placekicking gaffes on South Florida’s part by eschewing an early opportunity at a chip shot.

Scott Webb made both his field goals (37, 41) and added a touchback on the opening kickoff.

Kansas’s kick coverage went 1 for 2. After Webb’s first field goal, Taurus Jackson returned a kick 39 yards to set up South Florida’s touchdown drive. After Webb’s second field goal put the Jayhawks up 13-7, good coverage a deep, directional kick held Ean Randolph to a 13 yard return.

It’s not the best feeling in the world to wake up and discover that you’re working the same side of the street as octogenarian Lawrence Journal-World sports columnist Bill Mayer.

Hoopinion, on PhogBlog, 9/16/06: “…seven days from today, Kansas plays a must-win game.”

Headline in the LJW today:

Mayer: Kansas must win Saturday

All credit due, Mayer does, in his column, beat me to the punch in comparing the Oklahoma/Oregon refereeing debacle to the blown call which determined the winner of the 1940 Dartmouth/Cornell game.

I was saving that for a bye week.

Injury News

Greg Auman of the St. Petersburg Times reports that South Florida will be without their starting left guard, sophomore Jake Griffin, but left tackle Thed Watson will return to the lineup after missing the last two games.

As to the possible impact on Saturday’s game:

“Sophomore Ryan Schmidt took over at guard Saturday against Central Florida after Griffin was injured. Left tackle Thed Watson, who has missed two games with an ankle injury, is expected to make a healthy return this week, so USF could slide Matt Huners, who started at tackle Saturday, back to the opening at guard.”

Human Interest Story

Auman also describes how leading receiver and punt returner Ean Randolph came to join the South Florida program. Randolph began his college football career playing for a club team at NAIA school Webber International four years ago.

Statistical Note

Gregg Becnel of the Tampa Tribune reports that South Florida has outscored opponents 65-7 in the second halves of their three games. The lone touchdown they surrendered was on a blocked punt against Central Florida last week.

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South Florida has struggled to win both of their games against Football Bowl Subdivision Division I-A opponents needing late, fourth quarter touchdowns to defeat both Florida International and Central Florida. This may give back some of the optimism Kansas fans forfeited after watching the Jayhawks struggle to beat Louisiana-Monroe at home and lose at Toledo.

I’ll look at South Florida’s offensive, defensive, and special teams stats today (all stats courtesy of cfbstats.com and for Division I-A games unless otherwise noted). News and notes regarding issues of health, eligibility, and strategy which will impact the game on September 23rd will follow later in the week.

Offense–Running

South Florida has not run the ball effectively in either of their last two games gaining 123 yards (3.6 ypc) and 100 yards (2.6 ypc) against FIU and UCF respectively. Florida International has held all three of their opponents to less than 4 ypc on the ground. UCF’s only other Division I-A opponent was Florida who predictably ran roughshod over the UCF defense (204 yds, 5.7 ypc). South Florida’s run offense fared similarly to Villanova’s (81 yards, 2.6 ypc) against UCF.

155 of South Florida’s 223 rushing yards in the games against FIU and UCF were gained by freshman quarterback (#8) Matt Grothe. Sophomore (#30) Benjamin Williams leads South Florida running backs in rushing with 36 yards (on 14 carries) against I-A opposition.

Offense–Passing

Grothe struggled throwing the ball (15-28, 174 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT) in his first collegiate start against FIU, though his lone touchdown pass was the game-winner. He improved his numbers (22-32, 333 yds, 3 TD, 1 INT) significantly against UCF and again threw a game-winning touchdown pass. Grothe’s improved numbers from his first start to his second may be credited to the respective defenses he faced. UCF allowed Florida 433 passing yards and four touchdowns on 38 attempts the week prior to the South Florida game whereas FIU has allowed their three Division I-A opponents to complete just 55% of their passes for less than 6 yards per attempt while intercepting five passes.

Grothe has spread the ball around to sophomore (#89) Taurus Johnson (9 receptions, 146 yds), senior (#80) Ean Randolph (7 rec, 135 yds, 1 TD), sophomore (#11) Marcus Edwards (6 rec, 49 yds, 1 TD), and sophomore LSU transfer (#6) Amp Hill (4 rec, 56 yds).

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To: Toledo
From: Kansas

My first look at the 2006 Kansas football team was a frustrating one, both in terms of quality of play and length of game, the latter foiling my best efforts to remain sober for the duration of the game.

There are positives to take away from last night’s game. Kansas gained 391 yards. That’s only three fewer yards than Iowa State gained against Toledo in their triple-overtime game at Ames. Kansas outgained Toledo by 154 yards and gained nine more first downs. It took five turnovers by Kerry Meier to lose this game. That’s (fingers-crossed) not likely to happen again.

Between their final play of the first half and the final play of the game, the Kansas defense thoroughly shut down Toledo’s offense. The 2006 edition of the Kansas D isn’t going to be as good as the 2005 edition, but they figure to be decent and played well enough for the team to win had the offense held onto the ball.

All is not lost.

Before the season started, I figured the Jayhawks would likely lose either @Toledo or to South Florida. A 3-1 non-conference record will not strike a death blow to Kansas’s pursuit of bowl eligibility. A 2-2 non-conference record probably would. Thus, seven days from today, Kansas plays a must-win game.

Can we expect them to win?