Don’t expect any sleepy eyes or tight muscles today, even though Kansas University’s football team is in uncharted waters with a morning start.

“I like the early games,” KU wide receiver Jonathan Lamb said. “You kind of get up and go and just do it. The 6 o’clock games, you kind of get up, you have time to get your mind ready for the game. But it seems like you spend so much time just waiting around.”

Kansas will play Texas A&M at 11 a.m. today at Memorial Stadium – some seven hours earlier than what the Jayhawks are used to. In their first five games, they had four 6 p.m. starts and one 8 p.m. kickoff.

The team’s routine certainly will change as a result. Pregame meetings will start today at 7:30 a.m., followed by a team meal before players are shuttled over to Memorial Stadium, likely around 9 a.m.

For night games, the day is usually spread out, and players are given time at midday to go home and watch football on TV.

Nobody asked this week seemed to think it made much of a difference.

“Saturday, we usually wake up pretty early anyway to get the day going,” safety Jerome Kemp said. “We should be fine.”

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Meier ties: KU freshman quarterback Kerry Meier has some direct and indirect ties to Texas A&M.

For one, the Aggies recruited Meier hard, and Meier actually chose Kansas over Texas A&M in the fall of 2004.

Also, Meier is from Pittsburg, and Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione used to coach at Pittsburg State.

Franchione, though, wasn’t too familiar with the Meier family until he started recruiting Kerry – despite older brothers Shad, Adam and Dylan all playing college football.

“It’s pretty unusual to have two (Big 12 quarterbacks) and a third one who went on to the NFL,” Franchione said of Shad, who played tight end for five seasons professionally. “It’s just an athletic family and two young men that are outstanding quarterbacks.”

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Cornish watch: KU running back Jon Cornish is second in the Big 12 in both rushes and rushing yards. The leader, Oklahoma star Adrian Peterson, has played one less game.

Cornish has 582 yards on 113 carries. In a 12-game season, he’s on pace for 1,397 yards this season – good enough for second in school history behind Tony Sands’ 1,442-yard season in 1991.

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A&M rules: Texas A&M and Texas are the only league schools KU hasn’t beaten since the formation of the Big 12 a decade ago.