Ames, Iowa ? With the final seconds ticking off the scoreboard clock, Lynn Allen stood on a balcony of the Iowa State football team building in the north end zone at Jack Trice Stadium.

As the final tick tocked, Terry Allen’s wife burst into applause after the Cyclones buried Kansas, Allen’s old team, 45-3, on Saturday afternoon.

Terry Allen, who was fired as the Jayhawks’ head coach with three games remaining in the 2001 season then landed on his feet as associate head coach at ISU, was awarded a game ball.

What’s wrong with this picture?

I won’t begrudge the Allens their vengeance, yet something isn’t right when a coach is praised for waxing players he recruited particularly when it was clear the majority of them were not NCAA Div. I-A caliber.

Take the Jayhawks’ offense. Please. Kansas could make no headway against an Iowa State team hardly noted for its defensive prowess. Or as ISU coach Dan McCarney said after humbling the ineffective Jayhawks: “We’re not the Steel Curtain yet.”

Not after walloping a Kansas team that under first-year coach Mark Mangino looked like it couldn’t manage a first down against a cornfield.

As the Jayhawks were walking up the ramp to their locker area after the flogging, an ISU student leaned over the three-foot high chain-link fence and hollered: “You guys have the worst offense in college football.”

No one offered a rebuttal. What can you say after you struggle to produce 150 yards, can’t manufacture a play longer than 15 yards and average 2.3 yards on every snap?

“All 11 guys contributed to it,” Mangino said. “Not one person can be blamed for our ineptitude on offense.”

Still, offense starts with the quarterback, and neither starter Zach Dyer nor backup Bill Whittemore did anything to distinguish himself. With Dyer at the controls in the first half, KU compiled 52 yards. With juco transfer Whittemore over center in the second half, the Jayhawks managed 98 yards.

So you could say Whittemore performed better than Dyer, but that would be like saying Millard Fillmore was better than Franklin Pierce. You’re comparing mediocrities.

Dyer had the better passing stats, completing 6 of 14 for 50 yards, but he also lost 16 yards rushing. Whittemore ran 7 times for 29 yards he was the Jayhawks’ second-leading rusher but completed only 4 of 17 passes. Both Dyer and Whittemore threw an interception.

Afterward, in a classic understatement, Whittemore remarked: “We didn’t play a good game today.”

Kansas University fans, wrapped in euphoria with a new head coach boasting a glowing track record as an aide, had to be shaking their heads after watching Saturday’s game on television. No way were they expecting this.

Sure, the defense wasn’t very good, yet it was decent considering it had to spend so much time on the field. That offense, though, whew

In his first postgame media session as a head coach, Mangino maintained an even keel. He wasn’t up, of course. Yet he wasn’t down, either. Mangino uttered about the only things a coach can say after a one-sided defeat.

“We learned a lot about our personnel, our weaknesses and our strengths,” he said.

No doubt Mangino was fortunate not a single media-type pressed him to list those strengths. While the weaknesses were right there for everyone to see, the strengths were, well I guess they’ll show up on the videotape when the coaches grade this one.

“We’ve got 11 more games and we’ll get better as it goes,” Mangino said.

Gosh, you have to hope so. Otherwise, the longest regular season in KU football history 12 games will be the longest in more ways than one.