Kansas University red-shirt freshman Ja’Qwaylin Arps, a defensive end from Denison, Texas, has been suspended, KU coach Turner Gill said after practice Wednesday.

Arps, 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, has not played this season and missed the 2010 season because he was red-shirting.

Gill said Arps had been suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules. However, it was not clear whether Arps was still a member of the football team.

One indication he may not be comes from Arps’ Twitter feed. After not Tweeting once since July 30, which was around the time Gill implemented a team-wide Twitter ban for the season, Arps has been very active during the past week.

His first Tweet since July, which came last Monday, said: “I’m back but not a great reason to say why…”

During his red-shirt season, Arps was named the compete team defensive player of the week for his efforts in practice prior to KU’s game at Southern Miss. In high school, he earned all-state second-team honors his senior season at Denison High.

KU practices indoors

In preparation for its upcoming road game at Iowa State — 11:30 a.m. Saturday in Ames, Iowa — KU took a mini road trip Wednesday.

Instead of practicing in their usual spot, the Jayhawks loaded up the buses and traveled to Anschutz Sports Pavilion across campus.

Gill said the team went inside because of cold and rainy weather outside.

“It worked out pretty well for us,” he said. “We don’t anticipate Saturday to be this kind of weather. It’s going to be probably partly cloudy and a little bit cool, but we’re not anticipating (the rain). So it was good for us just to be able to go in and get some quality work. That was the reason to go in, to be able to get some quality work and have our guys good and focused on our game plan and what we’re trying to do against Iowa State.”

Gill said moving inside did not limit the Jayhawks in any way other than in the kicking game.

Back off the blitz

Last week, in a 43-0 loss at Texas, the Jayhawks faced one of the most tenacious blitzing teams in college football.

This week, the Jayhawks will get a break — at least in that department.

Offensive coordinator Chuck Long, who called Texas the most blitzing team he’d ever seen, said Tuesday that Iowa State was at the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to pressuring the quarterback.

In watching film of the Longhorns, Long said he and his staff identified 211 different blitzes. This week, while preparing for Iowa State, Long discovered 36. Taking that a step further, Long said UT liked to blitz about 50 percent of the time. The Cyclones? They bring the heat about 15 percent of the time.

“They’re gonna play coverage. They want to keep everything in front and make you go the long field and see if you make a mistake along the way,” Long said. “They play hard. They’re very solid in what they do. They’re very similar to Kansas State.”

Bottoming out

It took nine weeks, but KU now is a member of the ESPN.com feature “The Bottom 10,” written each week by college football reporter Mark Schlabach.

Kansas (2-6 overall, 0-5 Big 12) is ranked ninth on this week’s list, one spot worse than Maryland (2-6) and one spot better than Indiana (1-8). New Mexico (0-8) owns the top spot for the seventh straight week.

Of the Jayhawks, Schlabach writes: “Help Wanted: The Bottom 10 keeps waiting for the Jayhawks to show some signs of improvement under second-year coach Turner Gill. It is yet to be seen… Gill needs help or the Jayhawks might be hanging a ‘Help Wanted’ sign of their own.”

KU had been on The Bottom 10’s “waiting list” for the past three weeks, but cracked the big board this week after last week’s 43-0 loss to Texas in which the offense gained just 46 yards and the defense surrendered 590.