No need to consult Yogi Berra. It’s over. It really is over. No one can make Kansas University’s football team play any more games this season.

You will never, never, never hear Mark Mangino admit it, but he has to be one of the most relieved head coaches in the country.

This was a Kansas football team that began the season with faint hope and ended with no hope. In between, hope floated for a while when juco transfer Bill Whittemore showed flashes of brilliance as a quarterback. Then Whittemore was hurt, and a lackluster offense only compounded one of the worst defenses in school history.

Mangino not only had to rob Peter to pay Paul, he had to rob Mark to pay Luke and Matthew to pay John. Or was it the other way around? Whatever, KU was so strapped for personnel that junior Zach Dyer is destined to become the answer to a trivia question.

Who is the only quarterback in KU history to start the first and last games of the season at quarterback, and start at safety in between?

What’s really strange is that Dyer played much better at quarterback Saturday – after a two-month layoff – than he did in the opener at Iowa State. What a great story it would have been if he could have led the Jayhawks – 23-point underdogs – to a victory in the home finale.

Dyer might have, too, if the Jayhawks’ defense hadn’t earned the endorsement of the World Association of Matadors. If Great Britain had KU’s aerial defense during World War II, they’d be manufacturing Volkswagens in Liverpool.

A quarterback of little repute named Josh Fields threw six touchdown passes against the Jayhawks on Saturday. That’s an Oklahoma State record. Imagine that. Of course, it didn’t help that the Jayhawks were playing without their two regular safeties – Dyer and sophomore Johnny McCoy.

McCoy watched on the sidelines wearing warm-up clothes, his absence a mystery because Mangino doesn’t play “Clue” with the media. For all we know, McCoy tripped over Col. Mustard while carrying a candlestick on the way to the conservatory.

With Dyer switching platoons and with McCoy, who had started the first 11 games, watching, Fields had a field day because replacements Jake Letourneau and Matt Jordan were at least a step slower and a notch or two shorter.

Then again, would KU’s secondary have fared any better with Dyer and McCoy on the field? Dyer and McCoy were on the field when K-State’s Ell Roberson shook off his reputation as a poor passer by completing nine of 14 passes for 157 yards against the Jayhawks, and the two were also in the secondary when Texas A&M quarterback Dustin Long dusted the Jayhawks for 399 passing yards and three touchdowns.

Now that all the results are in, we know this was not – repeat not – the worst defense in Kansas football history. It was the second worst.

The 1988 team that finished 1-10 surrendered 45.6 points a game. This year’s team came in with a 42.3 average. Also, KU’s 1988 defense was gouged for an average of 536 yards a game – at the time an NCAA record for futility. This year’s team was way behind that number at 472.6 yards per game.

Still, for back-to-back bad defenses, the 2001 and 2002 Kansas teams rank right up there. Last year’s 3-8 team allowed its foes to score at a 36.2 clip, and that’s the fourth worst number in school history.

It’s no coincidence KU’s worst two defenses occurred under the watch of first-year head coaches. In 1988, Glen Mason had to make-do with what Bob Valesente left him, and Mangino was forced to play Rumpelstiltskin with Terry Allen’s straw.

Mangino vowed Saturday to recruit quality players and to place continued emphasis on the offseason conditioning program in a bid to pull Kansas out of the Big 12 Conference basement.

One short sentence he uttered after Saturday’s season finale convinced me.

Asked if he planned to take some time off now that the season was over, Mangino shook his head, saying, “I’m going to take a couple of days off at the end of February.”

February. That’s what he said. This is obviously a coach who doesn’t ever want to experience a 2-10 season again.