Big, fast and extremely physical wide receiver Dezmon Briscoe had Boise State, Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma State after his signature on a letter of intent.

It’s never easy for a prospect to let a coach know he has chosen someone else. Yet for Briscoe, the coaches who didn’t get him weren’t the ones he worried about informing.

“I didn’t know what my father was going to think about it so I told him a couple of days after I committed to Kansas,” said Briscoe, the 6-foot-3, 200-pound freshman from Dallas. “My father played at Oklahoma State so he was pretty upset when I told him I committed to Kansas. He wanted me to be a Cowboy. He asked me why I didn’t want to be a Cowboy. The receivers coach (Tim Beck) recruited me, and I told my father the bond I had with coach Beck made me want to come to Kansas. And I had the chance to play early. Oklahoma State wasn’t talking about the chance to play early.”

Winning a recruiting battle with that significant an obstacle is the sort of thing that has resulted in a noticeable change in this season’s KU football team. It’s faster. Faster at linebacker, faster in the secondary, faster at the receiver position.

This year’s freshman class, with Briscoe, starting cornerback Chris Harris, receiver Jonathan Wilson and red-shirt candidates Isiah Barfield, Rell Lewis and Brian and Ryan Murphy, is a particularly swift group.

On paper, this appears to be the fastest team sixth-year KU coach Mark Mangino has fielded.

“I think so, but I want to reserve judgment, see us against some more teams,” Mangino said. “Maybe on paper it is, but I always say there’s game speed and then there is track speed, timing speed. Some guys who don’t run great 40s play really fast on the field. Other guys run great 40s and then don’t play as well on the field. We’ll reserve judgment.”

Late Chicago Bears great Walter Payton and former KU linebacker Nick Reid are examples of athletes who appear faster playing their positions than when running for stopwatches.

The fastest of the freshmen?

“Isiah Barfield,” Harris said of the defensive back who is too raw to play as a freshman.

Harris, like Briscoe, said he turned down Oklahoma State, among others, to sign with KU and cited the chance to earn early playing time. He said he wasn’t recruited by Oklahoma and wouldn’t have signed with the Sooners even if they offered a scholarship.

“Oklahoma? No,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to go to Oklahoma. You have to wait forever to play there.”

Harris played safety in high school because the coaches needed him covering the whole field, not just one side. He has taken quickly to his new position and looks fast on the field.

“We run so much in practice,” Harris said, shaking his head side-to-side. “We base a lot of things on speed and explosiveness. The great defenses have speed, and that’s what we pride ourselves on, speed and running to the ball.”

Saturday’s game at Memorial Stadium won’t provide the best test for KU’s speed. Southeastern Louisiana is no Appalachian State. Toledo and Florida International won’t be great measuring sticks.

The first fleet foe will be Kansas State on Oct. 6 in Manhattan. Not that anyone needs another reason to circle that one.