Mayer: Kansas needs offense

Somebody, anybody, please, step up and become the caliber of quarterback and running back Kansas must have to break .500 in football this season.

If the Jayhawks can’t isolate and install a QB with the consistency and durability needed to accrue combat experience in the early going, KU won’t be favored against a single Big 12 Conference opponent after its three-game nonconference dalliance.

But that signal-caller will require complementary aid from a 1,000-yard type of runner who would be even more helpful if he could catch several passes a game – maybe even throw one now and then.

People who know a lot more than I about football, Kansas and otherwise, contend that without a big-league quarterback and runner, it could be a long, frustrating, painful season. Do-everything Charles Gordon can add only so much, and the boffo linebacking corps will be a force for foes to reckon with. But we saw last season that a potent defense can allow a club to play it tight but needs points, preferably about 35, to anchor big victories.

First coach I heard stress how the offense had to be stronger to protect the defense was the late George Bernhardt when he became Jack Mitchell’s key defensive tutor in 1958. The super-focused George was always so immersed in defensive football that he was almost unaware of most guys playing offense. Except that he knew his crews could prevent only so many points and that “those other guys gotta help us more.”

In fairness, George knew a few offensive players by name, like John Hadl, Doyle Schick and an Omaha kid named Gale Sayers. Yet his affection for them was directly proportional to whether they also could play a little defense, which all three of those guys could.

Offense is what has to turn around the season for Kansas. Right now, there are “names” at the running-back position, with modest promise, but so far nobody has taken charge and shouted, “You’re gonna hear from me!” either vocally or physically. I love the fact Brian Luke has declared he wants to be “the man” behind center. We’ll see and hope he can duplicate his Missouri leadership of last season, 11 times.

There is a QB foursome of Luke, Adam Barmann, Jason Swanson and Kerry Meier – a kind of barbershop quartet of potential.

But you know what they say about barbershoppers – four guys who sound OK as a group but who aren’t good enough to do much as soloists. Kansas desperately needs a soloist, with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett or even Josh Groban and Michael Buble tendencies, to go 6-5 or better in 2005.

As for Meier, the Pittsburg gem, if he starts at QB he’ll be the first freshman since the controversial and erratic Mario Kinsey was turned loose by coach Terry Allen in 2001 to run around like a chicken with his head cut off. Man, was that a bad choice. Mario tried basketball, too, made a couple of good buckets, but soon coach Roy Williams announced that Marvelous Mario would be concentrating on his academics rather than hoops. Roy got wind of some of Kinsey’s off-court antics, and not long after that Mario transferred to some Texas venue. Lots of form, little substance as far as the KU programs were concerned.

By the way, can anyone recall any true freshman who ever has started at T-quarterback for Kansas? Tough to track down. Kinsey was a red-shirt freshman when he took snaps in 2001. It’s a fairly safe bet that Meier would be a far better representative of what KU stands for.

Check out the KU league schedule. You know the Texas Tech aerial circus will have a deadly triggerman. Kansas State has a couple of quarterbacks with more experience than at Kansas. Oklahoma – with Adrian Peterson and the boys, the Sooners will find somebody effective. Colorado has the ultra-veteran Joel Klatt, who has undone Kansas before. In Brad Smith, Missouri has a fabulous talent if coach Gary Pinkel can decide what to do with it.

All kinds of rumors about struggling Nebraska and its QB situation, but it will be good enough that the Cornhuskers could add to their victory string against KU. Texas with Vince Young, who broke KU’s back last season (along with that crummy referee), may be en route to the national title, especially if it can finally beat Oklahoma. Iowa State has Bret Meyer.

Right now Kansas can’t match the quarterbacking threats of any of its Big 12 opponents. Unless that changes quickly and unless some runner-catcher surges forth, even a great defense might not be able to get KU those bowl-eligible six victories. You think those first three non-league wins aren’t vital? Then can Kansas go at least 3-5 in the conference since it has to play all three Texas foes on the road?

Talk about gut-check time!

¢ The good news is that even though Kansas University public relations have been taking a beating for a variety of reasons, there are some hellaciously wonderful people on and around Mount Oread doing fabulous jobs of depicting KU favorably, warmly and enchantingly. The chancellor ought to say a prayer of gratitude every hour for their marvelous salvage efforts to save the fort. Because of them, many great people continue to love and admire the school and are devoted to helping it survive periodic storms of any magnitude, academic or athletic. God love ’em!

The bad news is that I don’t dare cite any candidate(s) for public-relations sainthood. Where some of The Suits up there are concerned, I’ve got a Midas touch in reverse. Anybody I’d praise could wind up branded as some kind of traitor or subversive for even allowing me to know their name, let alone use it favorably.

But take my word: KU still is blessed with loads of incomparable, caring, able people who will get it through this distraction.

As for me, a friend (I don’t dare say who) e-mailed the heartbreaking news that I probably won’t get a Christmas card from Perkins Palace this year. But if I do, she said, I should check to see if there is any poison pen ink – and run like hell if there’s even a hint of white powder.