Kansas offensive lineman Pat Lewandowski (61) congratulates Kansas punt returner Nick Harwell after Harwell ran back punt for a touchdown against West Virginia during the fourth quarter on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014 at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Morgantown, W.Va. ? Nick Harwell caught the punt and looked to his left, where he saw a sea of yellow. He looked up the middle, where the play was supposed to go. More yellow. So he reversed field and took it down the right sideline for a 76-yard touchdown.

“Just trying to make something out of nothing,” was how Harwell described the play.

He just as easily could have used those words to describe the challenge that faces his new head coach, Kansas University defensive coordinator Clint Bowen.

Had Harwell hesitated at all on his return, the opportunity would have been lost.

Based on how Bowen handled his first week of practices and first of eight games during his head-coaching tryout, hesitation won’t be a problem for him either. He will make good decisions and bad ones because all leaders do. He won’t be guilty of hesitating. That’s not who he is. He’s an aggressive guy and he showed it Saturday in a 33-14 loss to West Virignia.

The future is now for Bowen and that’s the way he coached. He made decisions based not on promise, but on production. Produce and you play. Fail to produce and you’ll watch someone else play your position.

Montell Cozart struggled mightily in a first half that ended with West Virginia leading 26-0. In the locker room, Bowen met with the offensive coaches to let them know he wanted to switch to Michael Cummings and then they met with Cozart, who had not been benched all year.

“I didn’t see it coming,” Cozart said. “They came up to me and let me know what was going on. I went right up to Mike and told him go in there and just have fun. He came up to me and said he missed being out there. I told him, ‘Of course.’ Mike came right in, moved the ball down the field and did some great things.”

Cummings looked like the more experienced quarterback. He looked like he saw the field better, processed information more quickly than Cozart, had a better idea of where to go with the ball. He did not look like a particularly accurate thrower or as talented an athlete as Cozart.

The best way to look at making such a change is to put a premium on what it can do for the team at the moment, not what it might do for the psyche of the player being replaced.

Junior center Keyon Haughton, one of four junior-college transfers starting on the offensive line, made a couple of bad snaps, the last of which resulted in a fumble. That wasn’t good enough for Bowen, so he replaced Haughton with red-shirt freshman Joe Gibson. The rest of the snaps were fine.

Bowen puts a premium on developing players and designs daily practices with that in mind, but when it comes to games, the future is now. A team won’t learn how to win by getting away with losing plays.

Senior Nigel King caught four passes for 52 yards, but would have had much better totals if he were hit every time he popped open.

Asked about the change at quarterback, King said, “I normally think about what I’m supposed to do. I feel like whoever is back there is back there. I feel like we (receivers) had a lot more plays, but I just go off what I’m supposed to do.”

Knowing how to be a good teammate, King praised Cummings without criticizing Cozart.

Cummings was recruited by Turner Gill’s staff. Charlie Weis recruited six quarterbacks to Kansas — Dayne Crist, Jake Heaps, Turner Baty, Cozart, T.J. Millweard and Jordan Darling — and for the second time, the reins ended up back in the hands of the Gill recruit. Cummings started five games for Weis in 2012.

Millweard played for the first time and completed a 4-yard pass at the end of the game.

Regardless of which inexperienced quarterback plays, Kansas will struggle offensively behind a slow line, meaning the Jayhawks can’t play poorly on defense or in the special teams if they’re going to compete. More time was devoted to special teams this past week and will be in future weeks. Every unit was worked on every day, as opposed to one unit per day. It showed.

Even though KU allowed a 94-yard kick return for a touchdown, Harwell’s punt return negated that and Justin McCay’s fumble recovery on a muffed punt set up KU’s first touchdown.

Thanks to winning the second half, 14-7, baby steps were made, but seven tough climbs remain for the Jayhawks (2-3 overall, 0-2 in the Big 12) under a new leader who will give it all he has and play those who pay the most attention to detail, play the hardest, perform the best.

Bowen won’t look back on this opportunity and wonder: “If only I had been more aggressive.”