Woodling: Kansas wins one on form alone — for a change
First it was “Late Night in the Phog,” with everyone celebrating jubilantly the start of basketball season in Allen Fieldhouse.
Then, less than 12 hours later, it was “Daylight in the Fog” at Memorial Stadium.
Or at least the Kansas University football team — especially the offensive platoon — appeared to be feeling its way on little cat feet during the first half of Saturday’s homecoming game against solid underdog Baylor.
Then came the halftime break, and the din in the Jayhawks’ inner sanctum under the southwest stands might have rivaled the decibels created in the fieldhouse the night before.
“There was a lot of yelling,” sophomore linebacker Nick Reid reported. “Players were yelling at each other. It was pretty intense, and that’s what we needed.”
Banks Floodman, who backs the line on the other side from Reid, concurred about the cacophony.
“Lots of people were getting on each other,” Floodman said, “and that fired us up.”
How loud was it?
“It was loud,” Floodman said with a slight grin.
Baylor QB Aaron Karas (2) unleashes his final throw in the Bears' loss to Kansas. KU's Banks Floodman picked off the pass, sealing KU's 28-21 victory.
Whatever it takes. Just win, baby. And that’s exactly what Kansas did on an afternoon when the Jayhawks missed the A-train and didn’t bring their A-game.
The last time Kansas won a game on form alone was in … uh, well, recent memory contains no such occurrence. I can remember one of Glen Mason’s teams knocking off Iowa State when the Jayhawks weren’t firing on all cylinders, either physically or mentally, but that was in the early ’90s.
No doubt, though, the most noteworthy aspect of Saturday’s win over downtrodden Baylor — other than the form factor — was the defense making big plays when it had to, notably Floodman’s interception with less than two minutes remaining, and a sack by defensive tackle Tim Allen at nitty-gritty time.
Those were the critical plays the Jayhawks had failed to make in a 50-47 overtime loss to Colorado. When the defense needed to make something happen late in Boulder, Colo., it didn’t. This week, it did.
You may recall the Jayhawks played the entire fourth quarter and part of the third at Colorado without middle linebacker Gabe Toomey, who had suffered a game-ending undisclosed injury.
Toomey is not only the Jayhawks’ best tackler, he’s the inspirational leader of the defense, and when he left the Baylor game favoring his right shoulder early in the fourth quarter, it was an uh-oh moment.
Yet, after some treatment while the offense was on the field, Toomey was able to come back for the next Baylor series and play to the finish, leading the defenders with 13 tackles, including three for losses.
“I wasn’t worried,” Toomey said about his enforced departure Saturday. “I just rubbed a little dirt on it, like coach (Dave) Doeren says, and got back in there.”
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See the photos: KU v. BaylorAlthough Toomey made no critical plays at crunch time, his presence couldn’t have hurt. For instance, it could be Floodman was able to make his decisive pass theft simply because the Bears’ braintrust was determined to avoid Toomey’s area.
Floodman’s version of his game-defining moment was matter-of-fact.
“I just happened to drop at the right place at the right time, and he threw it to me,” Floodman said. “There’s not much else to say about it.”
Nevertheless, Saturday’s victory spoke volumes about the state of the KU football program today. On the whole, you wouldn’t think a coach would ever call a one-touchdown win over Big 12 punching bag Baylor a “giant step,” but KU coach Mark Mangino did, and he was correct.
“We proved to ourselves,” linebacker Reid said, “that we can win even when we don’t play great.”
Now the Jayhawks must prove they can play great again — as they did against UNLV, Wyoming and Missouri — because the road to the school’s first non-losing season since 1995 is littered with potential avalanches, starting with Kansas State Saturday in Manhattan.
It goes without saying, nobody wants the Jayhawks to be in a position where they have to win their regular-season finale against Iowa State for that to happen.