Kansas football: One area dramatically improved

The Kansas football team looked good in many areas in their season opening victory. One area stood out and it will have a huge impact on the Jayhawks this season.

Jayhawk fans enjoyed Saturday’s season opener for many reasons. First of all, the team won. At the moment, any win for Kansas football is a big deal. In addition, Doug Meacham’s Air-Raid offense lived up to everything we’d hoped. Peyton Bender also showed fans why David Beaty chose him to start at quarterback. Forget the 2 interceptions, Bender has an outstanding passing arm and received the blocking necessary to throw four touchdowns.

One area that neither coach Beaty or few others mentioned immediately after the win is the outstanding play of the Jayhawk kickers. The kicking game has been a roller coaster nightmare in recent seasons. Despite a few extraordinary moments, the Jayhawk kicking game has been a huge liability. Beaty and special team’s coordinator Joe DeForest have changed that in a big way.

As a matter of fact, freshman Liam Jones prevented any returns on kickoffs Saturday night. That is a huge advantage for the Jayhawk defense. He is a rare scholarship kicker and if he continues to do what he did Saturday, he deserves the scholarship.

A senior beat out Jones for the field goal kicking job. Beaty felt Gabe Rui earned the job. His five extra points and a 25-yard fourth quarter field goal impressed me. He looked confident and that is more than half the battle. Beaty praised both kickers during a Tuesday media briefing especially Rui.

"He literally worked his way into this. Going into camp I don’t think anyone would have given a chance to be the starter"

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I have seen too many missed extra points and field goals from KU kickers. Now fans and the coaching staff can finally relax during kickoffs. This improvement will have a dramatic impact on the season ahead and will earn the Jayhawks a win or two they didn’t expect.

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