Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino wishes he had more players like running back Clark Green.

“If we could have another Clark Green on the other side of the ball, that would be a real help to our team,” Mangino said after the Jayhawks’ defense allowed 549 yards – 397 passing – in a 55-20 loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

Alas, the two-way player is a thing of the past at KU, so Green did all his damage on offense in the season finale. The red-shirt freshman from Tampa, Fla., had his best game of the season with 160 yards rushing on 29 carries and four receptions for 55 yards.

“Clark Green is not a real big guy,” Mangino said of the 5-foot-11, 200-pounder. “He’s not a real fast guy, but he has the heart of a lion. He’s a tough son of a gun. He personifies what we’re trying to make this program be :quot; tough, gritty, hard-nosed, playing hard every snap.”

Green’s 30-yard run set up his own 4-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. On a second-quarter drive, Green had a 37-yard run and a 24-yard reception that set up Johnny Beck’s 42-yard field goal just before the end of the first half.

Green said he did a better job of finding the holes.

“That’s something we’ve been working on in practice, hitting the holes hard, looking up and following your block,” he said.

Green finished his first season as KU’s leading rusher with 753 yards and four touchdowns. He ranked as the Jayhawks’ season-leading receiver and set a single-season school record for catches by a running back with 37 for 408 yards.

The Jayhawks’ season ended earlier than KU’s Big 12 Conference foes. The 11 other Big 12 teams each have at least one regular-season game remaining, and eight are bowl-eligible.

Mangino said he hoped to take advantage of the early finish by getting a jump start on recruiting, and he’ll look for more hard-nosed players like Green.

KU’s returning players, meanwhile, will start offseason conditioning Monday.

“We have to take advantage of it,” Green said. “We have to get an early jump on the other teams that have bowl games. It’s going to be real important because we have a lot of young people coming back who need to get bigger, stronger and faster.”