Study the Kansas University football depth chart closely and you’ll notice 12 positions on defense — four linemen, four linebackers and four backs.

Does this mean the Jayhawks have forsaken the Big 12 Conference for the Canadian Football League?

Not really. What it means is third-year KU coach Mark Mangino is playing mind games with Tulsa U. counterpart Steve Kragthorpe.

Mangino hasn’t won a season opener since he’s been here — who can forget last year’s monsoon-plagued loss to Northwestern at Memorial Stadium? — so he’s practicing gamesmanship.

Obviously, Kansas can’t legally line up with 12 defenders. KU tried that tactic during a Penn State two-point conversion attempt in the 1969 Orange Bowl. It worked. Pepper Rodgers’ Jayhawks stuffed the Nittany Lions’ two-point try.

Then the back judge had to go and spoil KU’s late defensive stand by throwing a flag. Penn State earned another crack with only 11 Jayhawks on the field, scored and won, 15-14.

But that was then and this is now and one unanswered question about the KU defense is whether Mangino will use a 3-4-4 or a 4-3-4. (Looks like a Pick Three lottery array, doesn’t it?). The answer, Mangino said Tuesday, is both.

“We’re a 4-3 team,” Mangino stressed Tuesday. “Last year we used a package with three down men, but we’re not going to live and die with a three-man front. That’s not what we do.”

Do you think Kragthorpe believes that? Probably not.

It’s no secret Kansas’ four linebackers — Nick Reid, Banks Floodman, Gabe Toomey and Kevin Kane — are more accomplished than any four defensive linemen Mangino can put on the field, unless some of the new faces up front, mainly true freshmen, are the next Gilbert Brown or Dana Stubblefield.

One thing is certain. This year’s defensive line can’t be any worse than the 2003 bunch that too often stuck to blockers like Velcro statues, parting like they were on hinges. Too many of the linemen simply could not disrupt opponents’ offensive schemes and free the linebackers to make tackles.

Throw in a secondary that couldn’t cover, and the Jayhawks ranked 85th out of 117 NCAA Division I-A teams in total defense, allowing an ugly 412.6 yards a game.

Senior strong safety Tony Stubbs is the only returning starter in the secondary. On paper, that’s bad news, yet the replacements appear to be better.

I know converted wide receiver Charles Gordon can play. I saw him log some time there late last season and cornerback clearly is the place he needs to be if he wants to play for pay some day. Theo Baines reportedly is an upgrade at the other corner, too, while Rodney Harris, another juco transfer, has staked a claim to free safety after winning the job in the spring.

“The secondary,” linebacker Reid said, “is night and day from where they were last year.”

If true — preseason optimism is the humanest of natures — the Jayhawks’ defense seems poised to take a giant leap forward. Unfortunately, with the severity of the ’04 schedule, Kansas needs to make a quantum leap on defense, and there is no evidence — at least at this stage — to suggest such a dramatic transformation.

Year in and year out, the best teams in the Big 12 Conference are the ones with the best defenses. Nebraska won 10 games last year with a mediocre offense. Both Kansas and Nebraska played 13 games last season. The Jayhawks outscored the Cornhuskers, 384-322, but NU surrendered only 188 points, a staggering 208 fewer than KU.

Putting it another way, Nebraska won four more games than Kansas in 2003 because it boasted a better defense. I’m not worried about the Jayhawks’ offense. Sure, KU will have trouble scoring against the cream of the league’s defenses, but so will everyone else.

In a year when it seems virtually impossible for the Jayhawks to win the six games necessary to earn back-to-back bowl trips, actual success may have to be measured in increments of defensive improvement.