Kansas head coach David Beaty gives quarterback Ryan Willis a pat after a three and out during the second quarter on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015 at T. Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Okla.

Even though the Kansas University football team’s 0-7 record has not come as a total surprise, there is one statistic that helps explain it and justifies the Jayhawks’ struggles.

Kansas, which also sits 0-4 in Big 12 play heading into Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. kickoff against No. 14 Oklahoma at Memorial Stadium, leads the nation in first-time players.

KU coach David Beaty has tossed a whopping 37 first-time players onto the field during the first seven games of the 2015 season. That’s an average of five per game and includes all Jayhawks who are playing at the Div. I level for the first time.

There’s more. While KU’s number of first-time players is one more than fourth-ranked TCU, which enters the week unbeaten despite playing 36 first-time Frogs, the Jayhawks rank second to Central Florida in first-time starters with 30.

Only UCF, with 32, has thrown more rookies into the fire to open games. The next closest is TCU, with 20.

Just past the midway point of the college football season, the average record of the nine other teams in the Top 10 in most first-time players is 4-4 and features everything from TCU’s unbeaten mark to winless Central Florida (0-8) and one-win Texas-San Antonio (1-6).

Beaty has talked often this season about playing those who deserve to play. Based on these numbers, the first-year head coach has backed up his preseason claim that he was not going to worry about age, only ability. Even though he expected to employ the all-hands-on-deck approach, Beaty did not foresee it going quite like this.

“I think the biggest thing that’s been a surprise to me is the amount of youth that (we’ve had) to use in that first year,” Beaty said Monday morning on the Big 12 coaches teleconference. “I’m not sure that I thought, going into it, that we’d be playing that many newcomers. But because of injury and opportunity and competition, that’s what’s come to pass.”

And while playing so many players with so few snaps has led to a few long afternoons, Beaty, with his always-sunny disposition, has been able to view it as a positive for the future. And by future, Beaty was not just talking about 2016.

“The future looks bright, and the future is the next game, it’s not just next year,” Beaty said. “We’ve gotta take that information and be better the next week because now you’ve got something you didn’t have before, which is experience.”

Most first-time players, NCAA Div. I FBS, 2015:

Kansas 37

TCU 36

Colorado 34

Boston College 34

Central Florida 34

Georgia 33

Ole Miss 33

Tennessee 33

USC 33

Texas-San Antonio 33

Most first-time starters, NCAA Div. I FBS, 2015:

Central Florida 32

Kansas 30

TCU 20

Colorado 20

Virginia 19

Troy 19

Texas-San Antonio 18

Arkansas State 18

Fresno State 18

Colorado 17

Sooners heavy favorites

Oklahoma opened the week as a 39-point favorite over the Jayhawks, marking the fourth consecutive week that a Kansas opponent opened the week favored by 32 points or more.

KU is 2-5 against the spread this season, with the only victories coming against Rutgers and Texas Tech. Oklahoma, meanwhile, which enters the game at 6-1 and ranked 14th in the country, is 5-2 against the spread this season, 1-1 in games in which the Sooners are 30-point favorites or more.

KU-UT to kick at 7

Game times for the weekend of Nov. 7 were announced by the Big 12 Conference Office on Monday.

As previously reported, the KU game at Texas will begin at 7 p.m.

The game time for KU’s ninth game of 2015 was released early when it was learned that the Jayhawks and Longhorns would be playing on the Longhorn Network, which will share its broadcasting rights with Jayhawk TV locally.