Kansas quarterback Ryan Willis (13) is tailed by Iowa State defensive lineman Pierre Aka (91) on a run during the fourth quarter on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015 at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa.

In one sense, Kansas University true freshman quarterback Ryan Willis can’t win in his starting debut Saturday at home vs. Baylor. Upsets do happen, but not in games that involve a 44-point underdog.

In another sense, Willis can’t lose. For one, he’s gaining valuable experience competing against the nation’s third-ranked college football team. A poor performance can’t be held against him by reasonable judges because the team he’s leading doesn’t have a single player who could start for the team he’s facing.

Any debuting, true freshman quarterback playing for a 44-point dog is expected to have a long, rough day. Ignore the bad plays and take the good ones as very encouraging signs for a strong-armed quarterback who carries himself in a confident manner. That’s the only fair way to watch Willis work.

Willis gets the start in the fifth game of his career because Michael Cummings tore his ACL in the spring game, Montell Cozart is out indefinitely due to a sprained left shoulder and Deondre Ford is out for the season because of torn thumb ligaments.

The next man up is the fourth man up, which sounds outrageous until comparing it to Kansas State’s QB situation. Kody Cook, a senior wide receiver, took most of the quarterback snaps for the Wildcats in last Saturday’s 36-34 loss to Oklahoma State and played well. Jesse Ertz (knee), Joe Hubener (head injury), Alex Delton (knee) and Jonathan Banks (mono) weren’t available. Cook was sidelined by injury early in the fourth quarter, by which time Hubener was able to return.

In the case of Willis, he was being worked into games even before Cozart’s injury, which sped up the beginning of the coaching staff’s evaluation of the freshman. It was refreshing to see Willis throw downfield passes with such accuracy in the 38-13 loss at Iowa State. It was the latest phase of head coach David Beaty’s evaluation of the Bishop Miege quarterback. The first came as soon as Beaty accepted the job. Willis had already orally committed to Charlie Weis. Once the coaching change was made it was time for Willis to evaluate the new coaching staff and vice versa.

“We went and evaluated him, and once you see him throw, you’re like, the dude is pretty impressive with his arm,” Beaty said. “There’s no doubt about that. You didn’t see him run and move a lot, though. In this league, being a dual-threat guy sometimes helps you a bit. That was something I wasn’t quite sure on, whether he was going to be able to move around enough to extend plays.”

Evaluations always probe deeper than mere physical traits, especially at quarterback.

“The thing I was most impressed with him was every time I talked to him was his confidence, how he would talk about how, ‘Coach, you can go get another quarterback. That’s OK. I’m going to prove to you that I’m the guy.’ And he loves being a Jayhawk,” Beaty said. “That’s one of the other things I love about Ryan is he loves Kansas. He loves being a Jayhawk, which is what helps us right now because I think we’ve got a bunch of guys that love being at KU.”

Baylor no doubt will love coming to Kansas because it’s an automatic victory, pitting the nation’s best offense against one of the smallest, least experienced defenses.

The Bears are no slouches on defense, either, especially up front. Defensive end Shawn Oakman is 6-foot-9, 275 pounds. One day, he’ll undergo a body-fat test, but since he doesn’t have any of that yet, no point in doing so now. Nose tackle Andrew Billings (6-2, 310) is the Big 12’s best at that position. Defensive coordinators love to blitz young quarterbacks and Bears DC Phil Bennett has a penchant for that tactic vs. all opponents.

Big, fast bodies will be flying at Willis all afternoon as he tries to improve his speed-reading abilities.

“He is an accurate guy,” Beaty said, citing a few perfectly placed long throws vs. Iowa State. “I think the big thing is just getting him familiar with structure and understanding what he’s seeing and how to move the parts around so he’s not just looking for an open guy, he’s anticipating where the open guy is based on structure and how that moves.”

It’s always interesting to see the way teammates and coaches bring extra energy to their jobs to try to help a young talent thrown into a simmering cauldron. Blockers might protect him better than the individual matchups would project. Coaches remove as much stress off the green talent and onto themselves as possible.

Offensive coordinator Rob Likens shared the first thing he had planned to tell Willis: “First of all, any mistake that you make out there is all my fault. So don’t worry about anything but just playing.”

Watching a teenager trying to use a slingshot to dot the eye of a giant makes this a far more interesting mega-mismatch than most.