Sometimes being too smart gets in the way of doing the smart thing.

My brother John, by far the brightest of my late, great parents’ 10 children, was the only one smart enough to figure out how to maneuver a massive foot locker up the stairs and through a tiny hall so that we could weigh it on the bathroom scale. None of the rest of us could figure out the angles.

My sister Mary happened along and proved that wisdom beats excessive smarts every time.

“Why didn’t you just bring the bathroom scale downstairs?” she wondered, sending us all into swearing fits, followed by fits of laughter at our own stupidity.

And then there was the big puddle in the middle of the road. The genius chemist ran a series of tests and reached the conclusion the water was not contaminated and safe to walk through. Those not smart enough to test the water simply walked around it and reached their destination far earlier than those who waited for the chemist’s report.

OK, so I made up the anecdote about the puddle, but the point is, sometimes it pays not to be so smart you miss the obvious.

Which brings us to Kansas University and its rather obvious quarterback situation.

As are many coaches, KU’s Mark Mangino is fond of using the phrase “untrained eye” when talking about football, as in, “We did some good things that might go unnoticed to the untrained eye.”

Mangino’s football eyes closed are more trained than mine wide open. That doesn’t mean he’s right. It could be a case of Mangino knowing so much about quarterbacks Brian Luke and Adam Barmann he overlooks the obvious: Luke throws beautiful, on-target spirals. Barmann heaves wounded ducks.

The Jayhawks have a higher ceiling with Luke, despite his penchant for mishandling the football. He muffed a handoff at Kansas State in ’03. He stiff-armed a tackler and fumbled, instead of protecting the ball at Iowa State in ’04.

Luke handled the football and everything else fine and Barmann threw it poorly in last week’s season-opening, 30-19 victory against Florida Atlantic.

“He stayed poised,” Mangino said of Luke. “I’m glad to see that. That’s a very welcome sight to our coaches to see him out there composed and keeping his poise. That’s awesome. I’m really happy to see that from Brian.”

Happy and surprised.

Why Mangino continues to say he will use two quarterbacks remains a mystery. Could it be he knows that Luke, in the midst of the game of his life in defeating Missouri, asked out because he was banged up, even though all the other quarterbacks were injured? It could be, but the bottom line is Luke stayed in and won his only start as KU’s quarterback.

Here’s my guess what Mangino does with his quarterbacks Saturday against Appalachian State: Luke starts and plays until the Jayhawks run up a three-touchdown lead, by which time it will be safe to play Barmann. Mangino’s smart, but he’s not so smart he’s blind to the obvious.