Here is the formula for mediocrity in college football: When one plowhorse uses up his eligibility, the next, almost indistinguishable from the last, takes his place.

That ought to sound familiar to followers of Kansas University football, not always but too often sentenced to pulling for a boring product not quite up to Big 12 standards. A look at the turnover in talent signals times are changing. Before getting to an anything-but-dull offense, consider the changing of the linebackers.

A year ago, Nick Reid, Banks Floodman and Kevin Kane formed the team’s most reliable unit. Kill-the-quarterback specialist Brandon Perkins was a monster in the bandit package. Losing those four players in the same year seems almost cruel until studying the replacements.

Middle linebacker Mike Rivera is bigger and faster than any of them, which doesn’t mean he’ll be better than them right away. It does mean there is reason to be excited. Watching him play could be like watching New York Jets linebacker Jonathan Vilma in 2004. At the start, Vilma wanted to make every play, even when the right play was to protect his area and let the action come to him. He refined his talent in season so well he earned NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.

Joe Mortensen, another sophomore, also has that pro-active toughness. James Holt, an outside linebacker, doesn’t have ideal size, but the book on him is he’s a workout fiend who spends every waking moment trying to figure out how to become a crisper athlete and better football player. If Eric Washington ends up filling the Perkins role, KU has gotten faster there. That doesn’t mean better right away. It does mean potentially better.

Big plays from Reid, Charlton Keith, and Perkins will be missed. Shifting to the other side of the football, though, is where big plays should pack the 2006 highlight film.

Down the rest of that cup of mud, let your brain awaken fully, and ask yourself: When is the last time you have been this excited, on July 9, to see a Kansas offense take the field?

Every time the football is handed to Jon Cornish, even those of us so fidgety we couldn’t pay attention in school for more than a couple of seconds at a time instinctively will stop daydreaming and zero in on the back whose legs are so powerful and whose sense of smell is trained on the goal line.

At receiver, the precise route-running and sure hands of Mark Simmons will be difficult to replace, but big-play Brian Murph and the potential of Marcus Herford will make us watch closely. Still raw at his new position, Herford showed significant strides during the spring and embraced the challenge.

Nowhere is the essence of this team captured better than at quarterback, where the experience is ultra-light, the depth on the scary side, the talent seriously upgraded. Seeing complex, disguised defenses for the first time under heat, Kerry Meier will throw into coverages and make mistakes, especially in the early weeks. Still, compare him to predecessor Jason Swanson, who energized the offense and proved to be a winner. Meier is bigger, much faster, has more velocity on his throws, and a quicker release. He was stunningly impressive in the spring game.

This team will be hard on the nerves and easy on the eyes, which beats boring any day.