Three games into a season that is off to a shaky start, Kansas University opponents have two turnovers. Both came in an opening-week victory over Division I-AA Northwestern State.

KU coach Mark Mangino didn’t buy that the blame for the passive turnover totals lies with a lack of harassment of the quarterback.

“I thought the pressure was adequate,” he said of the double-overtime loss at the University of Toledo. “We had good pressure. You’ve got to understand pressure comes in different ways. Sometimes it’s just by contact or scaring the quarterback, but we took away his throwing lanes in the defensive line as well and knocked down some balls and made it difficult for him. We did put pressure on him, sacked him. I don’t think that’s the issue.”

What is?

“I think the real key is that with so many young kids on defense they just want to make sure they’re assignment-sound and where they’re supposed to be to make the play,” he said. “I think what we have to do now is get those kids to understand that getting the football is another step in the learning process for them.”

The growth in the secondary will come when the players, at least the smart, instinctive ones, have enough experience that being assignment-sound is almost second-nature. Until then, the best solution to improving the turnover totals goes back to turning up the heat on the quarterback.

“We need to be much better than adequate,” red-shirt freshman reserve defensive lineman Caleb Blakesley said. “I think we got to the quarterback a couple of times, got a couple of good shots on him, but adequate is not something that’s OK, whatsoever. Obviously, it wasn’t good enough because we weren’t causing turnovers. The quarterback wasn’t throwing bad enough passes to be picked off or anything like that.”

Third-year sophomore defensive end John Larson made the tackle for the safety against Toledo.

“We’ve got to get more pressure up front to force bad passes from the quarterback,” Larson agreed. “Also, we’ve got to strip the ball when the running back’s running. Get in that gap and try to put a helmet on the ball, get it out. We practice it every day, making the tackle first and then stripping the ball. The more you practice it, the more it’s going to come naturally.”

KU ranks a distant last in the Big 12 with a turnover margin of minus-7. Texas ranks 11th with a minus-3. It’s not that lack of consistent pressure is to blame for it, it’s just that, next to Kerry Meier making smarter passes, getting better at getting after the quarterback seems like KU’s most realistic path to a quick fix.

“We haven’t done what we could,” Larson said. “I was just looking at the stats on the board inside. We try to get a sack for every 12 passing attempts.”

So far, KU has one sack for every 18 passes.

“Pressure doesn’t necessarily correlate to sacks, but we definitely need to make sure to get back there more and create more turnovers for the DBs,” Larson said.

The Jayhawks’ sack total of seven, including three by defensive end Rodney Allen, ranks them tied for sixth in the Big 12.

The will to improve on that is there. Unfortunately, the way no longer includes Charlton Keith, Brandon Perkins and Nick Reid.