The knee-jerk reaction of an angry fan base any time a football team with a popular, successful head coach hits hard times involves turning with a mob mentality on the coordinator from the side of the ball doing worse.

In the case of a Kansas University football team embarrassed by surrendering 63 points at home Saturday to Texas Tech, that would be Clint Bowen, in his first year of flying solo as defensive coordinator, instead of as co-pilot to revered veteran Bill Young.

Nobody talked Young, who also coached the defensive line, out of accepting an offer to take a stab at helping to resurrect the football program at former perennial powerhouse Miami (Fla.) and Bowen was promoted to take his place. To expect Bowen to be nearly as successful right off the bat as Young, such an experienced coach bent on self-improvement, would be an insult to Young’s years. You know, no teacher like experience and all that.

It’s a little too convenient to simply heap all the blame for the pass defense’s abysmal play on the new coordinator and new defensive line coach, Joe Bob Clements. Sure, Young would have found a way to get more out of this defense, but how much more?

The problems start up front, where the defensive line lacks the talent to make quarterbacks hurry, much less panic, never mind fumble.

Charlton Keith doesn’t fly off the edge anymore. That was three years ago, as was Brandon Perkins teeing off on the quarterback from the bandit package. Second-team All-American James McClinton doesn’t collapse the pocket, making the quarterback run toward one of the defensive ends. That was last year.

Now would be a great time for the KU front four to become purple-people eaters – as opposed to the Purple People-Eaters of Minnesota Vikings fame – but don’t waste your prayers on that happening.

Easy, the knee-jerks say. Just blitz more. Blitz from the first snap to the final whistle. Blitz, blitz, blitz.

Two factors make that a hollow solution. First, against spread offenses, coaches try to rush the passer with four men for a reason. The more the offense is spread across the field, the bigger the holes in a zone defense. The bigger the holes in the defense, the more people it requires to cover all that territory.

Second, neither KU outside linebacker is ideally suited to blitzing. Both Mike Rivera and James Holt have impressive straight-ahead speed, but aren’t as swift when changing directions. Rivera blitzed better from the middle than the outside. Middle linebacker Joe Mortensen is the team’s best blitzer, but vacating the middle is asking to be nickel-and-dimed to death by drag routes (a few yards down field, then a 90-degree turn).

Blitzing Saturday against K-State at Memorial Stadium, 11:30 kickoff, might be more worth the risk than against pure spread offenses, but it still has its drawbacks.

Recruiting more defensive ends who can change direction smoothly and get to the quarterback in a variety of different ways is the solution. Failing that, it’s not going to be a defense likely to make a coordinator look good.