Kansas cornerback Justin Thornton (46) breaks up a pass intended for Oklahoma receiver Ryan Broyles in this file photo from Oct. 18. Thornton started the season at safety but moved to corner, a move that has helped improve the Jayhawks’ pass defense.

To many on the outside, it appeared such a desperate move, realigning the secondary in midseason in such a way that only one player, junior safety Darrell Stuckey, remained at the same position.

Just in time for a home game against Texas Tech, Kansas coach Mark Mangino pulled the trigger on a secondary shakeup that shifted junior Justin Thornton from safety to cornerback, sophomore Chris Harris from cornerback to safety and true freshman Daymond Patterson from wide receiver to cornerback. Phillip Strozier since has taken over a starting safety spot, and Harris has moved to nickel back.

After Graham Harrell and the Red Raiders shredded Kansas, 63-21, the move that going into the game looked bold and daring appeared to be little more than a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

From there, the defense righted itself.

“I think it’s been one of the key reasons why we’ve been playing better pass defense,” Mangino said of the shakeup. “There’s no question about it. Darrell’s been really kind of like the field general back there, getting people where they’re supposed to be. I think the chemistry is a lot better than what it was at the beginning of the season.”

Thornton, who did not make the trip to Tempe because of disciplinary reasons, said he first learned of the switch from defensive coordinator Clint Bowen early in the week leading up to the Texas Tech game.

“We had a chance to go over it on the board, and he drew up some coverages and really went over it in depth,” Thornton said. “It was a surprise to me, it really was. But at the same time, it’s fun, it’s interesting to shake things up, and it’s worked out for us.”

Given the way Oklahoma and Texas Tech torched KU’s pass defense, mere mention of the words “spread offense” instantly spread panic among Kansas fans who yearned for Aqib Talib, now playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Coming off KU’s taming of Missouri’s Chase Daniel (288 passing yards), uttering “spread offense” no longer elicits a wince from the same fan base. Minnesota (7-5) runs a spread offense, but that hasn’t prevented Kansas (7-5) from being a double-digit favorite in the Insight Bowl, which kicks off today at 5 p.m. at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State.

While the productivity of the Golden Gophers’ spread offense faltered in the late stages of the Big Ten season, the Kansas pass defense improved.

The good: Quarterback Adam Weber and receiver Eric Decker connected often enough to get Minnesota off to a 7-1 start and a spot in the top 25. The bad: Minnesota was outscored, 143-55, in its final four games, all losses. The ugly: Iowa shut out the Golden Gophers, 55-0.

In his final two games, Decker, who led the Big Ten with 76 receptions, was limited to three receptions for 30 yards without scoring a touchdown.

Weber ranked second in the Big Ten with 2,585 passing yards, but in his last three games averaged just 144.7 passing yards and threw three touchdown passes and four interceptions.

Even so, the Weber-Decker connection represents the biggest threat to Kansas winning its 20th football game in two seasons and third bowl game in four seasons.

Minnesota had so much trouble running the ball that at the end of the regular season second-year coach Tim Brewster (8-16 at Minnesota) fired offensive line coach Phil Meyer, replaced him with Tim Davis and named him the running-game coordinator and line coach.

If the Golden Gophers pull off the upset, chances are either Weber or Decker will be named the Insight Bowl MVP.

“(Decker) has great chemistry with their quarterback,” Thornton said. “He knows what Weber wants from him, runs good routes and has great hands. We’ve got to keep our eye on him because if we don’t, he can hurt us.”

As for facing another spread offense, Mangino said, “They’ll use a lot of spread formations to spread out your defense, there’s no question about that. It’s nothing we haven’t seen already. … They’re in spread formations, but the quarterback will pull the ball down and run with it. He’s kind of like a (South Florida’s) Matt Grothe-type of guy. Matt Grothe’s probably a little bit more polished, and been around a little longer.”

A pass defense always starts up front, and despite sophomore Jake Laptad’s encouraging development at defensive end, Kansas sitll doesn’t have a pass-rusher as disruptive as Minnesota’s Willie VanDeSteeg (9.5 sacks), but the pressure, some applied from the edge by linebacker James Holt, did increase as the season wore on.

The improvement rushing the passer wasn’t as noticeable as the strides made on the back end of pass plays.

“For sure, it definitely made a difference,” Thornton said of the realignment. “You know, move a couple of guys around, and once they got a feel for the new positions, we started playing well. It kind of brought us together.”