Kansas head coach David Beaty screams at his players during the third quarter on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2015 at Memorial Stadium.

Through two weeks of the 2015 season, the numbers back up what Kansas University football fans have seen with their own eyes — the KU defense is off to a rough start.

Of the 127 Division I football programs that have played a game or two so far, the Jayhawks rank 122nd in total defense, giving up an average of 557 yards per game to opponents.

Memphis, which topped KU 55-23 last weekend, racked up 651 yards and South Dakota State, which knocked off Kansas in the opener, rumbled its way to 463 yards of offense in its 41-38 victory.

That’s more than 1,100 yards in two games. And that total came against two of the three non-Big 12 teams on KU’s schedule.

First-year head coach David Beaty said after last week’s loss to Memphis that he believed the Kansas defense would improve as the season went along. Unfortunately for the Jayhawks, so, too, will many of the offenses they face.

Consider, for a minute, that the nine other Big 12 schools Kansas will face from Oct. 3 through Nov. 28 have averaged nearly 500 yards of total offense during the first two weekends of the season, with five Big 12 offenses residing in the Top 30 nationally, including top-ranked Baylor (754 yards per game) and No. 2 Texas Tech (643).

Add to those numbers the fact that the Kansas offense, under first-year coordinator Rob Likens, now runs a fast-paced, up-tempo system that, whether successful or a failure, often is only on the field for a couple of minutes at a time. KU’s new hurry-up style, which produced 90 plays in Week 1 and 85 in Week 2, can put even more pressure on the defense to perform at a high level and keep the offense within striking distance during shootouts.

That was the case in the opener, when the KU defense dug in after spotting SDSU a 31-7 lead to open the game, and it worked for a while last week against Memphis. Quarterback Montell Cozart’s 7-yard TD run with 11:20 to play in the third quarter pulled KU to within 31-20 with still nearly two quarters to play. From there, though, Memphis rattled off 24 consecutive points before KU scored again, converting on four consecutive drives of 75, 65, 62 and 71 yards. During that same stretch, three KU drives delivered 12 yards on six plays, four yards on three plays and five yards on three more plays.

“Obviously, that’s tough,” sophomore linebacker Joe Dineen Jr. said. “But we’re a team. There are times when the defense will screw up and the offense will have to go right back on the field, so it goes both ways.”

Asked if the psyche of knowing they would spend a good chunk of each game on the field added pressure, several KU defenders said they would not use time of possession as an excuse.

“It can’t be difficult,” junior linebacker Marcquis Roberts said. “We have to fight through everything and when we’re out on the field we know we have to get a stop to get our offense another shot. We can do it.”

Added junior safety Fish Smithson: “As a defensive player, you want to be on the field. The more reps we get, the better for us. That’s more chances for us to make plays. So I don’t look at it as us getting tired or wearing down, I just think that’s more opportunities for us. That’s the beauty of our offense.”

Speaking of the Jayhawks’ offense, though it was less impressive in Week 2 than it was in the opener, it seems to be holding up just fine for now — at least when it comes to the numbers.

There are problems at spots on that side of the ball, as well, but Likens’ crew, at 537 yards per game, ranks 41st nationally in total offense — ahead of four other Big 12 programs — and is 27th in rush offense (240 ypg) and 71st in pass offense (228 ypg).

Kansas (0-2) has a bye this week, while its next opponent Rutgers (1-1) — 11 a.m. kickoff on Sept. 26 at High Point Solutions Stadium in New Brunswick, New Jersey — plays at Penn State on Saturday night.