Kansas football: Carter Stanley can lead the Jayhawks to a win over TCU

There may not be a more polarizing figure on the Kansas football team this year than quarterback Carter Stanley. After the embarrassing Coastal Carolina loss, many fans were calling for Stanley to be replaced, but after a big win on the road against Boston College, Stanley silenced the doubters.

Carter Stanley has led Kansas football to some of its best wins in the past decade. Specifically, the Jayhawks’ win over Texas in 2016, and more recently Kansas’ road win over Boston College.

This week against TCU, Stanley will have the opportunity to lead the 16 point underdog Jayhawks to a big win on the road.

The Horned Frogs got beat last week at home by the SMU Mustangs 38-41. SMU quarterback Shane Buechele threw for 288 yards in addition to two touchdowns in the game, leading his team to a road win.

This week, Carter Stanley can do the same. So far, Stanley has improved in every single game this season; he still has a long way to go through.

Stanley’s two most glaring deficiencies have been a tendency to commit turnovers and a lack of awareness of the pocket collapsing. Both are frustrating to watch, but Stanley has already made some progress in his awareness.

Last week, when pressured Stanley took off and ran multiple times and picked up a large number of yards. He ended the game with eight carries for 39 rushing yards, including this run:

Stanley still struggled with turnovers though last week. There have been two occasions of game-changing fumbles committed by Stanley, which cannot continue. Also, Stanley has thrown at least one interception every game so far this year.

As Stanley’s decision making improves this season, hopefully, his interception numbers will fall.

For every weakness Stanley has though, he has five strengths to make up for them. The most notable of these is his ability to always be under control when things go sideways.

Football is a mistake-filled game where Murphy’s Law is in full effect for the duration of the game. Things will go wrong, and the best teams and players know how to respond positively to negative events.

This is where Carter Stanley is ahead of the game and why he probably won’t lose the starting job. Whenever he makes a mistake or his team encounters a bit of adversity, he comes back and does something positive.

Just last week against West Virginia, Kansas attempted an onside kick in the third quarter. After a controversial call, West Virginia was awarded the ball in addition to a penalty that put the Mountaineers deep in Kansas territory.

West Virginia came away with a field goal and extended their lead to ten points over the Jayhawks. Personally, as a Kansas fan, I believed this was the end of the game. West Virginia would stop the Kansas offense, get the ball back, and score again to put the game away heading into the fourth quarter.

Carter Stanley and the Kansas offense had other plans though.

After a touchback on the West Virginia kick, Kansas received the ball on their own 25-yard line with a little over four minutes left in the third quarter.

That’s when Stanley threw a missile to receiver Andrew Parchment who was streaking across the field to cut the West Virginia lead back down to three points.

Not only was this a beautiful throw and catch by Stanley and Parchment, but it was a gutsy play call that paid huge dividends. Stanley has excelled so far this season when Kansas goes with a more “aggressive” strategy.

Next week against TCU, it would be nice to see Kansas football take a step in the right direction and pick up their first Big 12 game of the season.

Still, if the Jayhawks don’t get the win, some noticeable improvement would be a welcome sight. The bar isn’t set very high, but then again it shouldn’t be considering the past decade of Kansas football.