Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops, left, and Kansas head coach David Beaty, right, meet at midfield after an NCAA college football game in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Alonzo Adams)

The road, as anyone who keeps up with University of Kansas football would tell you, can be cruel to a struggling program. So can timing.

The Jayhawks, coming off their seventh straight loss of the year and 42nd consecutive setback outside of Lawrence, travel this week to No. 14 West Virginia. Oh, and the Mountaineers just lost Saturday for the first time this season, at Oklahoma State.

KU head coach David Beaty indicated Monday he suspects WVU (6-1 overall, 3-1 Big 12) didn’t take the setback well.

“Form our standpoint, it’s gonna really be about us. It really is,” Beaty added. “We’ve gotta work so hard at being better at what we do before we can ever focus on anyone else. Our execution has got to continue to improve. To say that we were frustrated with that and our production offensively (two days earlier in a 56-3 loss at Oklahoma) is an understatement. We have to be better from an execution standpoint.”

Kansas cornerback Brandon Stewart (8), safety Greg Allen (22) and the rest of the Jayhawks, coaches and personnel watch from the sidelines late in the fourth quarter on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016 at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas.

In road games this fall, KU (1-7, 0-5) has suffered all four defeats in blowout fashion: Memphis won, 43-7; Texas Tech rolled, 55-19; Baylor dominated, 49-7; and OU finished its drubbing by scoring 49 unanswered points.

“And then defensively we’re still giving up a lot of points,” Beaty said. “I know we’re playing well throughout spurts of the game or large portions of the game, but we still can’t give up points. Those are areas where it’s the name of the game for every team in the country, and we’ve gotta be better there.”

Still, Beaty reiterated Monday his claim that he saw progress in KU’s latest defeat.

“We have to look at reality and where we really are,” the second-year head coach said, “and one of our big goals coming off what we have done on the road to this point is going out and starting fast. We were out of the game at Baylor really quick (down 21-0 in first quarter). We were out of the game versus Memphis really quick (trailing 19-0 early in second). And that was due to slow starts. Obviously, you need to play a complete four quarters. But given our roster and just the amount of depth that we have, at times you’re gonna get wore down a little bit. And we understand that, so we’ve gotta do a better job of training the guys behind ’em to make sure they can give us the plays that we need to rest those starters, to be able to play deeper into the game.”

Constantly searching for indicators of improvement, Beaty said KU had it best road first quarter of the year (the Jayhawks trailed 14-0 in the first at Texas Tech) by taking a 7-3 deficit into the second quarter at OU.

“So I think the big thing for us is to continue to work on the fact that when one play goes wrong we don’t let one play turn into two,” Beaty said, “and two turn into three and so on and so on. If we can do that, we’re gonna have a chance to improve the team.”

Through the years, Kansas has lost all three trips to Morgantown, W. Va. Long before the Mountaineers joined the Big 12, WVU won 21-0, in 1941. More recently, West Virginia destroyed Kansas, 59-10, in 2012. In its previous trip to WVU, KU fell, 33-14, in 2014.

Back in Lawrence

Following this week’s 6 p.m. (ESPN 2) meeting with West Virginia, at Milan Puskar Stadium, Kansas returns to Memorial Stadium to face another struggling Big 12 team, Iowa State (1-7, 0-5).

The conference announced Monday the Nov. 12 KU-ISU game will kick off at 11 a.m. and air on Fox Sports Net.

KU hasn’t won a Big 12 game in nearly two years, dating back to a 34-14 home victory over Iowa State, on Nov. 8, 2014, when defensive coordinator Clint Bowen served as interim head coach.