The Kansas Jayhawks will open their season today at 6PM at Memorial Stadium against the University of Northern Colorado Bears. The Bears are lead by Head Coach, Scott Downing, who is in entering his fourth year as head coach of the Bears. He may be familiar to people in Big XII country as the recruiting coordinator at Nebraska under head coach Bill Callahan. He left after recruiting one of the top classes in the country in 2005 to take over the head duties at UNC. Downing has a career record of 3-31 at UNC, and a 2-22 league record in the Big Sky.
One point of promise for the UNC Bears is their returning players, especially their quarterback Bryan Waggener. Waggener was a highly recruited quarterback prospect out of Ayala High School in California, who went to JUCO route to make his way to a D-1 school. He signed with Florida out of JUCO and was stuck behind Tim Tebow as the backup, before deciding to transfer to UNC to play under Downing. Waggener possesses excellent size, standing 6′3″ and weighing in at 240 pounds, and is a capable runner as well. He led the Bears in passing yards last season with 2546 yards and 14 touchdowns, and also contributed 170 yards rushing with two touchdowns on the ground.
University Of Northern Colorado Bears: 1-10(1-9) in 2008
Losses of Note
@Purdue 10-42
Texas State 35-38
Montana 20-41
Key Stat:
Northern Colorado was outscored by their opponents 326-225 in 2008. Look for Kansas to take control in the second and third quarter, considering the Bears were outscored by 84 in those two quarters in 2008.
There is little threat of Kansas losing in this game, but it should be a good opportunity to see how the defense looks against a team that was pretty effective at moving the ball last season. UNC played the Purdue Boilermakers tough in the first half last season before having a pick six go against them to end the first half. To open the season KU has won 17 consecutive non-conference home games since losing the 2003 season opener to Northwestern, look for this trend to continue.
