Kansas Jayhawks Football

The Jayhawks football team did not receive many votes of confidence during their visit to Norman to face the mighty Sooners, and while not many outside their locker room expected a close contest, the fashion in which they lost was laughable.

Dayne Crist made two plays better suited for a true freshman on his first collegiate series, as he missed a simple screen pass to Tony Pierson, one that would resulted in an easy score and 10-7 deficit. The following play he awkwardly scrambled before Oklahoma popped out a loosely held football, setting up a quick TD and a 17-0 advantage.

Crist is just one of a handful of Jayhawks that will officially be replaced atop the depth chart as they prepare to host the Texas Longhorns, a game they could compete in despite being a heavy three-touchdown underdog.

Weis announced this week that redshirt freshman Michael Cummings will start at QB, although he did last week but was replaced multiple times by the fifth-year senior Crist for no apparent reason.

Others that may see a demotion include Crist's fellow Notre Dame transfer Mike Ragone at tight end, as Jimmay Mundine and Trent Smiley should see more snaps. Mundine will potentially get the starting nod as he appears to have better chemistry with Cummings than Ragone.

Junior wide receiver Chris Omigie is now listed with the first team, and redshirt freshman Damon Martin could overtake senior Duane Zlatnik at guard after an impressive showing against Oklahoma.

Omigie will benefit from the absence of D.J. Beshears, who is lost for the season, and Daymond Patterson, who continues to battle a nagging head injury. Patterson remains questionable, meaning Omigie and Andrew Turzilli will be the main targets for Cummings as he looks to exploit a porous Texas secondary.

The University of Kansas brought in a high-profile coach and welcomed a high-profile transfer QB and former 5-star recruit to Lawrence in hopes of beginning yet another rebuilding attempt.

Six games into the season, the jury is still deliberating on Charlie Weis, but a verdict has been reached on Dayne Crist based upon overwhelming evidence.

Following a squirmishly uncomfortable three quarters of football vs. Oklahoma State, a game in which Kansas had numerous opportunities early to pull within a touchdown, Weis benched Crist in favor of redshirt freshman Michael Cummings. 

Cummings received garbage minutes last week in a 40-point loss to Kansas State, but it was unclear if the move was made due to the continued ineffectiveness of Crist or fear of injury to the only remotely proven active QB on the Jayhawks roster. 

The 5'10", 201-pound Cummings nearly brought Kansas back from a late 20-point deficit, falling one fourth-down swing pass away from a red-zone opportunity with under three minutes remaining and down six points.

Despite the overthrown lob to Brandon Bourbon, Cummings was easily the most valuable player of the game, which is saying a great deal considering a few standout performances from an energized KU defense.

The numbers are not head-turning, as he completed five of 10 passes for 75 yards and one touchdown, but the level of pocket awareness was significantly better than that of veteran Crist, routinely moving outside the tackles to hit his checkdowns and even a slick heave to Kale Pick along the sidelines. 

Cummings' most veteran-like decision of the game came on Kansas' first TD, a roll-out pass over the middle to Jimmay Mundine, who snuck over the top of the Cowboys' linebackers. 

Dayne Crist has made less than a half-dozen impressive throws in five-plus games and repeatedly displays little poise and horrendous third-down decision-making. Twice on 4th-and-long, he scrambled for a short gain as the Jayhawks were threatening to score.

Head-scratching overthrows and missed middle screen passes are indicators of a young, confused quarterback—something Jayhawk fans were not expecting upon Crist's arrival. 

Michael Cummings gave Kansas its best shot at a conference victory in nearly two years and appears to have the inside track for the starting job for its difficult trip to Norman next weekend. It is impossible to fathom Weis sticking with Crist and it appears his frustrating college career came to end this evening at Memorial Stadium.

The Kansas Jayhawks' coach and quarterback both come from Notre Dame, but they have yet to bring along the luck of the Irish.

They are also yet to produce a win over an FBS opponent.

The next stop is DeKalb, Illinois to take on the Northern Illinois Huskies. Kansas better win this one, because the schedule doesn't get any easier.

After Turner Gill was sent packing following a disappointing 5-19 record with the Jayhawks, former Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis was called in and former Irish quarterback Dayne Crist took over at quarterback. However, the transition has been rougher than expected.

Kansas opened the season with a win over South Dakota State, a team in the "others receiving votes" category of the FCS, but the Jackrabbits gave the Jayhawks a good game.

After losing to Rice 25-24 on a long last-second field goal, Kansas opened Big 12 play with a tough assignment against TCU, a team just two years removed from being arguably the nation's best team. The Jayhawks held the Horned Frogs to 20 points, but could only muster 6 themselves in the loss.

Considering the Jayhawks defense finished dead last in total defense in 2011, holding Rice and TCU to two touchdowns each showed some promise for Dave Campo, the Jayhawks' new defensive coordinator and long-time NFL coach.

However, looking at the point spread for this week's game, you wouldn't know it.

Northern Illinois has played 30 teams from BCS conferences in the last 13 years and have had some success—most notably a thrilling win over Purdue in 2009 in which the Huskies pulled off a gutsy but perfectly executed fake punt to preserve the win. 

In 2002 and 2003, they opened the season with wins over Wake Forest and Maryland. 

But one thing has remained consistent: Except for an 11-point win over Minnesota in 2010, none of the other 29 games against BCS opponents has resulted in a double-digit victory.

The Huskies went 11-3 last season, including a bowl victory, but quarterback Chandler Harnish, the 2011 MAC player of the year, has graduated. Harnish's departure left the door open for Northern Illinois' new offensive stud, Jordan Lynch.

A capable athlete and one of the larger quarterbacks in the league, Lynch is a dual threat who has been called upon to do it all in the early going, as the offense returns just three other starters from last season's bowl team.

Against Army, he passed for 342 yards and ran for 125 more in a 42-41 win in which Northern Illinois held the ball for just 17 minutes.

Against Iowa, it was a different story.

Northern Illinois tallied just 201 total yards of offense, and 73 of those yards were on a single running play. Iowa's defense was notably better than Kansas' unit last season, but the Hawkeyes did lose four starters on the defensive line. 

Last season Kansas went winless in the Big 12, but its one FBS win came over Northern Illinois. Chandler Harnish was the starting quarterback for NIU in that game and was a solid 27-of-33 passing while rushing for 89 yards on 11 carries.  Jordan Lynch will be asked to shoulder the same type of load, but it's doubtful he will hit on 82 percent of his passes like Harnish did.

Whether running or throwing, Lynch was responsible for all but 52 of the Huskies' yards against Iowa and 467 of 515 yards against Army.

One must assume Dave Campo has been around long enough to draw up an effective game plan for the Jayhawks defense to at least try to contain this one player who is doing it all through the first two FBS games.

The Jayhawks must feel motivated about being big underdogs to a MAC team that returns just four offensive starters, so look for them to come out and play with some extra intensity.

As for new coaches Charlie Weis and Dave Campo, the last thing they will want to do is come back to Lawrence, Kansas with a double-digit loss hanging around their neck from a MAC team.

History is on Kansas' side—of the last 30 teams Northern Illinois played from a BCS conference, most were losses. More importantly, just one resulted in a double-digit win and that was the 11-point win over Minnesota in which the Huskies were out-gained by 91 yards.

Through all this, the Jayhawks roll into Huskie Stadium on Saturday as 9.5-point underdogs.

Take the points!