D-back taken aback by honor

Converted safety Stubbs tapped player of week by Kansas coaches

Tony Stubbs sauntered into Monday’s Kansas University football team meeting with no expectations whatsoever.

Thus, when coach Mark Mangino announced that Stubbs had been named the Jayhawks’ defensive player of the week, he was taken aback.

“I was kind of surprised,” Stubbs said. “I believe everybody should have been picked. But I’ll take it.”

Stubbs, a 5-foot-10, 200-pound strong safety, didn’t post eye-popping numbers in the Jayhawks’ 41-6 win Saturday against Jacksonville State. He was credited with just four tackles, but the fourth-year junior defensive back did make his first career interception and also broke up a pass.

When Mangino talks about the Jayhawks being a work in progress, he probably could use Stubbs as his poster child. Stubbs came to KU in the fall of 2000 out of Lake Worth, Fla., as a running back-defensive back. He took a red-shirt that season, then played in only two games as a freshman in 2001, Terry Allen’s last season as head coach.

“When coach Mangino came, he asked me if I’d like to play defense,” Stubbs said. “Then I found out it was way different than high school. I mean, you have only two coverages in high school.”

While learning the ropes last season, Stubbs played in 11 of the Jayhawks’ 12 games, starting two in the secondary. Otherwise, he was on the special teams. Finally, last spring, Stubbs came into his own, earning the free safety starting job.

“I feel I was learning to read the keys a whole lot better,” he said.

All summer Stubbs thought he would be the Jayhawks’ free safety in the opener against Northwestern. Then Mangino and his staff decided to move Nick Reid from strong safety to outside linebacker, shift Stubbs to strong safety and insert red-shirt freshman Jonathan Lamb at free safety.

¢<i>” border=”0″/> 6Sports video: The team with the football last may win</a><span class=¢</i>” border=”0″/> 6Sports video: Mangino has no reservations about Beck</a></td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> <p>It hardly was a radical move for Stubbs, not at all like moving from free safety to wide receiver or to punter.</p> <p>“Actually, I knew most of the stuff,” Stubbs said, “so it wasn’t really that hard.”</p> <p>Still, a strong safety has more run responsibilities than the free safety, and run stoppage is where Stubbs remains a work in progress. Asked what area he needs to improve the most, Stubbs didn’t hesitate.</p> <p>“Missed tackles,” he said. “I have too many as it is. I feel I’m doing OK, but there’s room for improvement.”</p> <p>A sports fitness and management major, Stubbs always has been a participant in extra-curricular activities. In addition to playing four sports in high school and serving on the student council, he also was in the ROTC, climbing to the rank of captain.</p> <p>“People don’t know about that unless they read the (KU football) media guide,” Stubbs said, smiling. “My mom forced me to go into it. I was in ROTC for four years, and I kind of liked it — the discipline, keeping your shoes and uniform clean … things like that.”</p> <p>As a college football player, Stubbs still has plenty of things to prove, yet in the big picture there is little doubt he is a classic example of a late bloomer.</p> <script type=