Just out of reach

Jayhawks fight back, but fall to Raiders

Lubbock, Texas ? It clawed, fought, scraped, scrapped and appeared unwilling to surrender through so much of the second half Saturday.

But Kansas University’s football team found out that erasing a 20-point halftime deficit against No. 16 Texas Tech required more poise and more firepower than the Jayhawks had to work with.

So a respectable 30-17 defeat was the next best option, which KU begrudgingly accepted Saturday at Jones SBC Stadium.

“Our kids settled down,” KU coach Mark Mangino said, “and with the exception of a couple of big pass plays, the rest of the night played out very well against an offense that’s high-powered.”

Kansas played solid defense against the nation’s most dangerous offensive team Saturday. It was done mainly by applying constant pressure on Tech quarterback Cody Hodges, who took licks right and left and never once lost his edge.

The Red Raiders took the lead on the game’s opening drive, and the Jayhawks needed mistake-free football to dig out of the hole. But they had a few too many letdowns hindering the climb.

A botched option deep in KU territory was recovered for a Tech defensive touchdown and a 17-0 lead.

A 45-yard third-down conversion by the Red Raiders when they needed 31 yards to move the sticks – almost a third of the field – sustained an eventual scoring drive.

Multiple 15-yard KU penalties – some questionable, some not – breathed new life into Tech throughout the game.

Most of all, though, the Jayhawk offense failed to find its groove in the air, leading to 17 incompletions, two interceptions and just 154 yards of movement on 38 attempts.

Go figure

7-for-7
Scoring success for both teams combined in the red zone (Tech was 4-for-4, KU 3-for-3)

333
Passing yards for Tech’s Cody Hodges

3
Quarterbacks played by Kansas University

154
Those three KU QBs’ combined passing yardage

The incompetence made Jon Cornish’s legs all the more valuable. The running back rushed for 111 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, but it seemed big runs setting up potential rewarding drives by the junior proved to be irrelevant after the passing game failed to complement him and finish the drive.

“If we have to, we’ll make adjustments,” Mangino said of Cornish’s utilization. “But he’s one of our best special-teams players and a force for us in those areas.”

Mangino said the aerial attack wasn’t “crisp” Saturday, and like a vintage automobile, it seems the smallest of problems can knock a whole system out of whack.

“It’s a very thin line,” receiver Mark Simmons said. “You make a couple of plays here on passes, it spreads out the defense, and you can hit them in the gut with the run. But we weren’t able to do that for four quarters. That’s what hurts.”

Simmons hauled in a 17-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, the second touchdown of the frame which chipped away at the steep Tech lead.

A Scott Webb field goal early in the fourth quarter cut the deficit to 27-17, and gave KU faithful a sliver of hope that a comeback indeed still was possible.

But offensive drives stalled throughout the final period, and Tech moved the ball enough to eat clock – and stalled KU enough to finish off any late threat.

“If it wasn’t a misfire, it was a drop,” Mangino said. “If it wasn’t a drop, it was not a really well hemmed route. Those are correctable things, and we’ll get those things corrected.”

The passing problems were magnified by the presence of Tech’s Hodges, who completed 34 of 52 passes for 333 yards despite claiming he has to “get better.”

Hodges found seven receivers, threw just one interception on a tipped ball and earned the respect of KU’s coach, who spoke up more than once on the senior’s impact.

“The biggest difference was just one player: Cody Hodges” Mangino said. “He was the difference in the game. That’s the bottom line in my book.”

Kansas drops to 3-1 overall, including an 0-1 mark in the Big 12 Conference.

The in-state showdown with Kansas State looms, and though several encouraging signs can be taken from Saturday’s game, there are some discouraging ones to pick through, too.

That’s enough for the Jayhawks to summarize the trip to Lubbock with a big thumbs down.

“We aren’t looking for moral victories,” senior Charlton Keith said. “We came here to win tonight. We didn’t accomplish that goal.”