Kansas Is Back (To Not Being The Worst)

Saturday morning, the nation turned its eyes to Lawrence, Kan., where Kansas and Rutgers met in a game that promised to be a college football cult classic, a game which delivered with a 16-minute orgasm to start the game.

It included:

• Two pick-sixes (both returned by Kansas)
• Two blocked kicks (both by Rutgers, one returned for a TD)
• A touchdown catch by a receiver missing a shoe (Kansas)
• A running back trying to hurdle a defender and having the ball pop out at the apex of his leap (Kansas)
• Two Rutgers fumbles

All of this had happened before the first minute of the second quarter had passed.

The game lived up to its considerable hype. You expected to see bad football, and you did. What you did not necessarily expect to see was one of these teams being obviously better than the other, yet it was undeniable on Saturday that Kansas is better than Rutgers.

Kansas (2-1) also beat Central Michigan last week, which means beyond all reasonable doubt that Kansas is no longer the worst college football team.

Kansas is back, baby.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Kansas’ quarterback play is abominable, regardless which of the two quarterbacks are in the game at the time. And yet not as bad as Rutgers’.

I defy you to find a more pitiful quarterbacking performance this season than the one put up by Rutgers freshman Artur Sitkowski. After he was intercepted in the middle of the third quarter, he was 7-for-19 for 47 yards and three interceptions, two of which, as noted, were returned for touchdowns.

Rutgers ran it with some success, but dumped all over that with a pair of fumbles. After the Scarlet Knights’ fifth turnover, Kansas put up a touchdown to go up 38-14 and pull itself out of the college football cellar for the first time since, oh, maybe that time in beat Texas.

(Next drive, Rutgers lost a fumble on the center-quarterback exchange).

Early in the fourth, Kansas led 48-14. The Jayhawks don’t have much of a passing game, but their defense shows some signs of legitimacy, and freshman running back Pookah Williams — who has a foot with no toes and is the highest-rated prospect Kansas has signed in years — has looked like a star in back-to-back games.

KU entered this season on an 11-game losing streak and dropped its opener to FCS Nicholls State. But Williams didn’t play in that game, and with him the Jayhawks are 2-0.

So look out, Bama.