The Defense did what it has done all year and stifled the Jayhawks. Senior DL Darius Stills (6’1 285 lbs.) even came up with an Interception off of a tipped pass. Freshman DL Ahkeem Mesidor and Senior DL Jeffrey Pooler Jr each had 2 sacks, with Sophomore Bandit Jared Bartlett throwing in 1 sack. DB Alonzo Addae added an Interception. Our leading tackler was Junior LB Josh Chandler-Semedo with 9 overall.
Leddie Brown carried the offense once again. This time he had 18 totes for 195 yards with a rushing TD after busting loose for an 87-yard beeline to the house in the 2nd half, and add to that 5 catches for 36 yards and a receiving TD. The WRs had a ton of drops, Sam James had 3 all by himself. Ford-Wheaton had 5 catches for 89 yards and a TD but he also had a few drops. Winston Wright Jr. came away with 4 catches for 54 yards. Doege’s numbers don’t look as bad as he played. He was extremely erratic most of the game, especially the first 3 quarters when the game was close, he did settle down some in the 4th when the team had a big lead. And yes, his receivers dropped some balls but he also missed quite a few wide-open passes. He finished 26/44 for 318 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT.
Special Teams was again mediocre. Evan Staley missed a 44-yard FG to make him 12 out of 22 (54%) for his career on kicks over 40 yards and Pooka Williams returned a Kickoff for a TD. Our kicking game (or lack thereof) will come back to haunt us at some point. You have to be able to make kicks over 40 yards in FBS, especially Power 5 play. Against a better opponent, it would have haunted us this game. After Staley missed the 44 yarder, Neal Brown decided to go for it on a 4th down and failed when we could have kicked a 49 yarder. Instead of going up by two scores (20-10) we remained ahead by only four points. Fortunately, because we were playing Kansas, it didn’t end up mattering but against our Conferences better opponents – it will catch up to us.
