Keegan: Texas made KU look bad

Austin, Texas ? I never claimed to be in tune with the unique customs of Texas. Even so, isn’t burnt orange just a wee bit too cheerful a color to wear to an execution, especially in a state that has no shortage of experience in that area?

Oh well, at least the Longhorns were considerate enough to supply blindfolds to the Kansas University football players before the game. Slipping them on correctly was about the only thing the Jayhawks did well Saturday afternoon.

On the very week the hook ’em horns tradition turned 50, the second-ranked Texas Longhorns abused KU, 66-14, in front of 83,696 fans at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

Many of the witnesses headed for the Sixth Street bars when it got too bloody, which would have been before the half was over and the scoreboard read Texas 52, Kansas 0. That ran the Longhorns’ streak of unanswered points to 152.

Texas makes a weekly habit of making teams look bad, no excuse for how little resistance the Jayhawks threw in the way of a team that did whatever it wanted in getting one week closer to a Rose Bowl showdown with USC that a nation of college football fans craves.

Favored by 33 points and playing on senior day, Texas shouldn’t have needed any extra motivation, yet Longhorns coach Mack Brown didn’t want to take any chances.

If Brown’s ploy to use Mark Mangino’s “BCS, that’s right, BCS” tirade from a year ago didn’t help fire up the Longhorns, it certainly didn’t hurt. After nearly every play was whistled dead, a Texas player delivered a shove here or an elbow there, nothing serious enough to warrant a late-hit penalty, and just enough to show who was willing and able to play the role of bully.

Texas was more physical, taller, bigger and a great deal faster than Kansas. All those advantages quickly were evident, most noticeably when Vince Young tossed a bomb into the end zone up for grabs and one player from each side jumped for it. Limas Sweed of Texas is 6-foot-5. Theo Baines generously is listed at 5-11. Guess which player caught it for a 45-yard score? If you said Sweed, get yourself a shingle, write “psychic” on it, and you’re on your way to the ranks of the wealthy. You’re clairvoyant.

The only reason so many stayed until the end of the burnt-orange domination was to participate in one of college athletics’ coolest traditions. As usual, the Texas players sang “The Eyes of Texas” with fans who motioned the hand signal that in Sicily means something not so nice. This was far from Sicily. This was Austin, home of a college football powerhouse again.

Meanwhile, the Jayhawks headed for showers intended to wipe away the stink of the season’s worst defeat.

KU has two weeks to lick its wounds before a make-or-break-a-season game against Iowa State at Memorial Stadium. The Jayhawks stay in Lawrence and they can hang with anybody, as evidenced by their 5-0 record at their home stadium. Take them outside Lawrence city limits, even as close as Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, and they are 0-5.

If KU can finish the season undefeated at home, some bowl will be interested in the team that had one first-half first down against Texas.