All season, the knock on these Jayhawks has been that they’re too small, too slow, too weak and too inexperienced to compete.

Most weeks during Kansas University’s 0-10 start to the 2015 season, that has proven true. But Saturday, during a hard-fought and hard-to-take, 23-17 loss at 13th-ranked TCU, the Jayhawks stood tall, played strong and showed the experience they have gained is starting to pay off.

Never was that more evident than on a pair of fourth-down plays in the red zone, where the Jayhawks dug in to keep points off the board and the road team in the game.

“That might be one of the only statistical categories where we’re actually in pretty decent shape right now,” KU coach David Beaty said of his defense’s steady improvement inside the 20.

KU junior Fish Smithson (9) wraps up TCU's Aaron Green (22) for a loss in the Jayhawks' 23-17 loss to TCU on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015, in Fort Worth, Texas.

The first fourth-down fight came late in the second quarter at the end of a TCU drive that began at the Horned Frogs’ own four-yard line. After riding running backs Aaron Green and Kyle Hicks most of the way down the field, TCU faced a fourth-and-one from the Kansas 12 with 1:05 remaining in the half.

Rather than taking the three points and heading into halftime with a 13-10 lead, TCU again called Green’s number, but the bruising tailback was met in the backfield by KU’s Marcquis Roberts and Anthony Olobia, who wrapped Green up simultaneously and tossed him to the ground for no gain.

The second came two plays into the fourth quarter. Again, rather than taking an almost-automatic field goal and extending their lead to 16-10, the Frogs elected to go for a fourth-and-three from the KU seven. A fade pass from third-string QB Foster Sawyer sailed out of bounds, and KU held.

“The coaches stress all week, you gotta bear down when you’re in there,” sophomore linebacker Joe Dineen said. “Everyone has to come together and play that much harder to not let ’em in the end zone. I felt like we did that (Saturday), and it paid off for us.”

While those two stops by Kansas might not have led to a Jayhawk victory, they were the difference between KU having a chance to win the game late, down six, and KU being behind by two or even three scores in the game’s final minutes.

The reason they came?

“Those guys have a fireman mentality,” Beaty said. “Everybody else is running out, and they’re running in. And we’ve talked about it … you have to put the fire out, and they’ve adopted that as their mission.”

The two red-zone stops Saturday against a top-15 team delivered an extra dose of confidence to the Kansas defense. But the challenge of playing a clean game, start to finish, and making those plays for four quarters all over the field, remains.

“We’re getting closer,” said Beaty, whose team will close the season with home games against West Virginia and Kansas State. “But we still have a couple controlables we’re leaving out there. … A smart team’s a hard team to beat, and, usually, the smart team is gonna win those close games.”