Kansas University receiver Kerry Meier (10) gives a celebratory bump to fellow receiver Johnathan Wilson following Meier's second touchdown. The Jayhawks rallied from a 20-0 deficit to beat Iowa State, 35-33, on Saturday in Ames, Iowa.

Ames, Iowa ? On Saturday afternoon, Kansas University’s football team played its worst half of the season.

Luckily for the Jayhawks, they followed it up with one of their best.

Thanks largely to a second-half surge in which it outscored host Iowa State by 22 points, Kansas managed to overcome a 20-point second-half deficit and escape Ames with a 35-33 victory in the third-biggest comeback in school history.

“That first half was really probably the worst collective half I’ve been a part of since I’ve been here,” said quarterback Todd Reesing, who threw for 59 yards and an interception in the first two quarters.

He wasn’t kidding.

Later this year, when members of the Kansas University athletic department are searching for footage for the football team’s 2008 highlight video, they would be wise to skip over the first half.

Among the low-lights: Raymond Brown’s dropped pass on a Kansas third down; a Jocques Crawford fumble that led to an Iowa State field goal; a rare Todd Reesing interception that led to another Cyclones score.

In the most glaring faux pas of the half, Brown bumped into Daymond Patterson on a punt-return play, sending Patterson stumbling and resulting in a fumble recovery by Iowa State.

When the self-destruction had ended, Kansas faced a 20-0 deficit to a team expected to be the weakest on its conference schedule.

The Jayhawks managed just 93 first-half yards – compared to 181 from Iowa State – and were held scoreless in a half for the first time all season.

In the locker room at halftime, however, coach Mark Mangino’s message to his team was simple.

“I told them, ‘Listen, we played very poorly,'” Mangino said. “‘We can’t play any worse. Let’s face it, we played very poor football in the first half. But we can win this game, and we will win this game if you stay poised, stay calm and correct the things that we need to correct.'”

Check, check and check.

On the second offensive play of the third quarter, Reesing found running back Jake Sharp wide-open for a 67-yard touchdown pass that cut the lead to 20-7. Angus Quigley scored on a one-yard run one possession later, and receiver Kerry Meier followed that up by catching his first of two touchdown passes of the day, this one a 23-yarder from Reesing.

By the end of the third quarter, Kansas had taken a 21-20 lead, and by the final stages of the fourth quarter, they’d built that into a 35-26 advantage, one they wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the way.

Reesing finished 18-for-26 for 319 yards, and Sharp – who has struggled recently in limited action – had his best game of the season, compiling 186 total yards and two touchdowns while the defense redeemed itself after a sluggish first half.

“We haven’t been in a hole like that,” sophomore cornerback Chris Harris said. “But we know with our offense, if we get stops, 20 points is nothing. We know if we come out and get stops, we would score.”

Both teams’ players and coaches took turns grasping for an adjective to best describe their teams’ respective rough patches.

“Atrocious,” is how Reesing described the Jayhawks’ first half.

“Abysmal,” Iowa State Gene Chizik called his team’s final possession, a potential game-winning drive that ended after Kansas held strong for four straight plays to force a turnover on downs.

The good news for Kansas, however, is that it returns to Lawrence unsettled but unscathed, set to prepare for what figures to be a bit more formidable opponent in Colorado, a team that nearly upset the Jayhawks in Boulder last season.

“I think it did (wake us up),” said Meier, who finished with 125 yards and two scores, his third game with more than 100 yards receiving. “This is the Big 12, and everybody’s going to be good. Bottom to top, it’s a tough conference. I don’t think we woke up real quick, and it took us two quarters to get woke up.

“But once we did and we got rolling, it was OK.”