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Updated 6:32 AM on Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Kansas gets most out of talent

By ROBERT CESSNA
Eagle Columnist

If Kansas head football coach Mark Mangino subscribes to a recruiting service, he does it for laughs.

Kansas is the only unbeaten team in the Big 12 Conference, and Mangino has done it without a signing class rated higher than 38th in the country by Rivals.com.

The core of KU's 7-0 team comes from the 2004 signing class, which was rated 51st in the country and only 11th in the Big 12.

That group has accounted for 170 career starts among 10 position players, led by senior defensive tackle James McClinton and junior cornerback/wide receiver Aqib Talib. KU's 2005 class, rated 38th, has 99 career starts among eight players.

"Talent alone is not the only criteria [to recruiting]," Mangino said. "We want to know a little bit about their character, [and] how they are going to work in the classroom here. What kind of program did they come from? Is there discipline and structure in their lives? Are they kids who are team-oriented?

"We take a number of things into our thought process. Sometimes, if you just recruit talented kids and don't look at intangibles those guys don't always help you win and are not always the best chemistry guys."

KU does recruit blue-chip players along with the hard-working, over-achieving ones, Mangino said, but there's no doubt he's had to make due with a lot of the latter.

And Mangino believes there's a correlation between how a player handles his business off the field if he expects to be good on the field.

The perfect example of KU's shrewd recruiting is sophomore quarterback Todd Reesing out of Lake Travis, who is 7-0 as a starter. Reesing didn't even make Texas' Top 100 recruits by Rivals.com.

The state's eight quarterbacks among the Top 100 that year were: No. 2 Matthew Stafford of Highland Park (signed with Georgia), No. 9 Jevan Snead of Stephenville (Texas), No. 43 Greg McElroy of Southlake Carroll (Alabama), No. 45 Taylor Potts of Abilene (Texas Tech), No. 50 Christian Ponder of Colleyville Heritage (Florida State), No. 57 Nick Stephens of Flower Mound (Tennessee), No. 64 Sherrod Harris of Arlington Bowie (Texas) and No. 98 Andy Dalton of Katy (TCU).

Even today when outsiders think of quarterbacks in the Big 12, the names mentioned are Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, Missouri's Chad Daniel, Texas Tech's Graham Harrell, Texas' Colt McCoy and A&M's Stephen McGee.

But Reesing has all-conference numbers. He has a passing efficiency rating of 149.42, which is 18th in the county. He has completed 129 of 220 passes for 1,805 yards with 17 touchdowns. He's thrown only four interceptions, which ties him with McGee for fewest in the Big 12.

The 5-foot-11, 200-pound Reesing, who was rated the nation's 16th best dual-threat quarterback, wasn't heavily recruited because of his size. That didn't stop KU.

"[In] the recruiting process you never get a chance to spend as much time around these young people as you'd like," Mangino said. "You have limited contact as a head coach. But when he came here, he kinda had an engaging personality. He was really intelligent and really knew what he wanted, and that kinda caught my attention."

Now it's Mangino and the Jayhawks who are catching the attention.

KU's current group of commitments for 2008 is rated 55th by Rivals, and again is only 11th in the Big 12. Struggling Nebraska, meanwhile, has a class that's rated ninth in the country.

Nebraska has fallen on hard times despite three straight Top 20 recruiting classes by embattled head coach Bill Callahan.

You can argue that Nebraska is showing what a pair of back-to-back average recruiting classes can do for you.

Nebraska's 2003 class, ranked No. 42, has produced 145 career starts on this year's team. The 2004 class, ranked No. 27, has accounted for 134 starts.

It's hard to determine if help is on the way. The 2005 class, which was No. 5 in the country, has led to only 35 starts among four players. Nebraska's last two highly rated classes have accounted for 55 starts among eight players.

Interim Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne, who created a legacy as the Huskers head coach, said you can't base everything just on recruiting ratings.

"I would say this," he told the Lincoln Journal Star. "Take this four- and five-star stuff with a little grain of salt. These fellas that are recruiting analysts make a living by four- and five-star stuff. But, really, you have to look at film, talk to coaches, get in camp. You'd be surprised how many guys are 4.4 [seconds in the 40-yard dash] on paper, and then when you put a stopwatch on them, they are 4.9."

Mangino must have talked to Osborne along the way.

KU's last two classes - rated No. 38 and No. 50 - have accounted for 46 starts among nine players. KU has four true freshmen who have combined for 26 starts. A true freshman playing for KU but yet to start is former A&M Consolidated standout linebacker Drew Dudley, who has played in every game. He has six tackles.

Almost half of the current career starts by A&M position players come from the nation's 10th-ranked class in 2003 that has 238 starts among nine players.

The 2004 class, ranked 13th, has combined for 111 starts among nine players. The 2005 group, which was rated eighth, has 120 starts among 10 players. The 27th-ranked 2006 class has 48 starts, led by junior college transfer linebackers Mark Dodge and Misi Tupe who have combined for 29.

A&M junior quarterback Stephen McGee was named the Big 12's offensive player of the week. McGee had 35 carries for 167 yards in the 36-14 victory over Nebraska.

Missouri strong safety Cornelius "Pig" Brown was the defensive player of the week after a career-high 14 tackles and an interception in a 41-10 victory over Texas Tech. Kansas place-kicker Scott Webb was the special teams player of the week with two field goals in a 19-14 victory over Colorado.

Texas A&M's game Nov. 3 at Oklahoma will be televised, but the time slot will hinge on this weekend's games

Texas at Oklahoma State and A&M-OU have been held for ABC, which will broadcast one at 2:30 p.m., and possibly the second at 7 p.m. If ABC picks up only one game the other game will be on FSN at 11:30 a.m., splitting that slot regionally with Nebraska at Kansas. Kansas State at Iowa State (11:30 a.m., VERSUS) and Missouri at Colorado (5:30 p.m., FSN) will be the other TV games on Nov. 3.

This Saturday's TV games are Kansas at A&M (6 p.m., ESPN2), Colorado at Texas Tech (11 a.m., ABC) and Nebraska at Texas (2:30 p.m., ABC).