Kansas quarterback Montell Cozart heads up the field on a run against Southeast Missouri State during the first quarter on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014 at Memorial Stadium.

Newness played a big role in the Kansas University football team’s 34-28 season-opening victory over Southeast Missouri State on Saturday night at Memorial Stadium.

New offense. New quarterback. New top receiver. New look.

And like a shiny new toy that emerges from a mixture of colorful wrapping paper, bright ribbons and shiny bows on Christmas morning, the new-look Kansas offense led by coordinator John Reagan produced plenty of joy in this one, particularly in the first quarter when KU raced out to a 24-0 lead before having to hold on at the end.

“I couldn’t ask for much more in the first quarter,” KU coach Charlie Weis said after the victory witnessed by a crowd of 36,574.

The 24-point outburst, which was the result of scores on four consecutive possessions, was the most points a KU offense had scored in a quarter since the Quinn Mecham-led Jayhawks scored 35 points in the fourth quarter of an improbable victory over Colorado in 2010. The 34-point total marked just the fifth time in the Weis era that KU had scored more than 30 points in a game.

Of course, having a huge lead, playing from in front and watching the KU offense rack up points at will was a new experience for most of these guys, as well, and Weis said that might have had a direct impact on why things went south after that, as the Jayhawks were outscored 28-10 over the final three quarters.

“My conjecture is they were so antsy and anxious to get going that I think they might not be used to success, to playing on top,” he said. “You’re finally feeling good about yourself for a change, because there are so many times you’re playing from behind, rather than playing from in front. It might have even caught them off guard a little bit that things were going so well.”

Even the game’s two biggest plays on offense and defense in the early going came from newcomers. Freshman tailback Corey Avery (91 yards on 19 carries) scored KU’s first touchdown of 2014 on a 10-yard run five minutes into the first quarter. And freshman cornerback Matthew Boateng came up with the Jayhawks’ first takeaway of the season, an interception that had as much to do with senior safety Cassius Sendish lowering the boom as it did Boateng being in the right place at the right time.

“There were a bunch of guys like that,” said Weis, noting the strong night by junior-college transfer De’Andre Mann, who ran for 121 yards on 15 carries.

“I told you guys about De’Andre and Corey,” added sophomore quarterback Montell Cozart of the KU running game that rolled to 261 yards, 5.3 per carry. “They’re great backs and they stepped right in. We trust them and we’re gonna keep giving them touches. The run game’s gonna help us a lot in the pass game.”

It was hardly all fireworks for the KU offense. In fact, in addition to gaining just 13 yards of total offense in the second quarter, KU scored just 10 points after halftime, with seven of those coming in 11 seconds following SEMO’s first touchdown of the night.

On the Jayhawks’ first play from scrimmage following a DeMichael Jackson touchdown run, Cozart dropped a perfect pass into the hands of a sprinting Tony Pierson, who caught it and spun off of SEMO defensive back Reggie Jennings in one motion and then out-raced everyone to the end zone for a 67-yard touchdown that put the Jayhawks ahead 31-7.

“That’s just Tony being Tony,” Cozart said.

Added Weis: “That was a hell of a spin move.”

On paper, the numbers look pretty. KU racked up 457 yards of offense and Cozart, who struggled with accuracy issues last season, finished 12-of-24 for 196 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Perhaps more importantly, two of those TDs went to senior transfer Nick Harwell, who finished with 46 yards on four catches and just missed on a few other deep balls that might have blown the game open.

“Those were my fault,” Harwell said of the deep shots in the second half that missed by inches and came down the field because of SEMO’s press coverage. “Bad judgement on my part, thinking I was fast enough to get it.”

SEMO quarterback Kyle Snyder threw three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to bring the Redhawks (1-1) storming back, and, despite never really threatening to take the lead, SEMO at least made the Jayhawks uncomfortable and added 10 or so minutes to Weis’ postgame press conference, time enough to answer a few more questions about just what happened.

The biggest question now, however, is this: Was it Saturday’s explosive first quarter or the next three upon which the 2014 Jayhawks should be judged?

It may be too early in the season for either answer to be correct. But the Jayhawks know they’re far from a finished product.

“I’m very practical as you know,” Weis said. “I addressed the negatives as well as the positives, but the bottom line is you’re 1-0. Now you can go off and everyone can tell you that you just beat SEMO and you’re no good. And you can do it one of two ways… You can either sulk or enjoy a win, because the wins, it isn’t like we have a hundred of them in the last few years. Enjoy the win, and let’s get ready to go down to Durham and play Duke, because the next major hurdle is we haven’t won on the road here in a long time.”

KU captains Ben Heeney and Harwell said the team had already made up its mind about what to do next.

“You obviously gotta enjoy a win when it comes,” said Heeney, who, big surprise, led KU’s defense with 11 tackles. “The first quarter was a completely different team than it had been. We came out in the second half with no juice. Half the stadium’s empty like it always is. Fans leaving at halftime. There’s no juice in the stadium and I think that’s part of it.”

Added Harwell: “The first quarter we played Jayhawk ball,” Harwell said. “We showed some spurts of how good we could be and we’re just gonna keep moving forward.”