Texas Tech players and coaches claim their high-scoring offense is simple to execute. To counter, Kansas University’s offense has an equally basic belief heading into Saturday’s game.

“They can’t score,” center David Ochoa said, “if they don’t have the ball in their hands.”

So, with worries about twisting tongues, KU’s offense sees a chance to act as the Jayhawk defense against Tech’s offense simply by moving the ball against Tech’s defense and keeping Tech’s offense off the field.

Got it?

The Jayhawk offense gets it. Last year’s Texas Tech game featured a 26-point turnaround, a perfect example of the importance of sustaining drives.

After KU went up 30-5 against the Red Raiders, the Jayhawk offense stopped moving. Consequently, the defense stayed on the field too long, became fatigued and allowed a 25-point lead to become a one-point loss to open Big 12 Conference play.

It was a depressing trend for KU players in 2004 – an inability to finish football games.

Former Kansas University player Gary Heaggans, right, attempts to catch a touchdown pass as Texas Tech's Chad Johnson defends in this file photo from last season. The Jayhawks led the Red Raiders, 30-5, in the game Sept. 24, 2004, but Tech used its high-flying offense to rally for a 31-30 victory.

For the offense, doing its part to finish just might be accomplished by playing keep-away with the football – and finding the end zone.

“We definitely need to eat up some of the clock by running the ball and completing the ball through the air,” quarterback Brian Luke said. “Like every game, we want to score as many points as we can. The more points we score, it just puts us in that much better of a situation.”

To eat clock is to have an effective ground game, something the Jayhawks did in victories over Florida Atlantic (201 rushing yards) and Appalachian State (207). But KU mustered just 41 yards rushing against Louisiana Tech, and Texas Tech’s defense is even better.

“I think their defense is overlooked somewhat because of the attention the offense gets,” KU coach Mark Mangino said of the Red Raiders. “Their defense has been pretty productive. They have speed in the secondary, they have physical players up front. Their defense is also very sound.”

¢ Families OK: Hurricane Rita swept through Texas over the weekend, where dozens of Jayhawk football players originally are from. For the most part, their families escaped without many problems.

Ochoa, whose family lives north of Houston in The Woodlands, said his family was spared any bad news.

“But I’m old enough to realize my fortune is someone else’s misfortune,” Ochoa said. “Anytime something like that it happens, it’s a bad situation.”

Ochoa said fellow lineman Anthony Collins, who hails from Beaumont, had troubles, but that Collins’ family was safe.

¢ No sweat: Saturday’s game will be the fourth straight 6 p.m. start for KU, always an unpredictable issue because of television agreements with ABC, Fox Sports and TBS. Often, teams aren’t sure what time they’ll play until less than two weeks before the game.

“With the way our television package works in the conference, you get used to playing the game at anytime from 11:30 in the morning to about 7 o’clock at night,” Mangino said. “We always tell our players we don’t know our times of games, but it’s not a big deal.”