LAWRENCE | On the scoreboard, they smoked another opponent.</p><p>Mark Mangino&rsquo;s Kansas Jayhawks smashed Duke 44-16 on Saturday, raising their record to 3-0, their season margin of victory to 127-26 and thoroughly impressing Blue Devils coach David Cutcliffe.</p><p>&ldquo;They are far better than the No. 22 ranked team,&rdquo; Cutcliffe gushed. &ldquo;People are going to have a hard time defending that team. They make you look a little worse than what you are.&rdquo;</p><p>Funny. I was thinking just the opposite.</p><p>I spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out what was wrong with the Jayhawks, their offense and their defense.</p><p>Oh, the Kansas offense ran up an impressive number of statistics, including 23 first downs, 338 passing yards, 490 yards of total offense, three TDs through the air and two on the ground. Receiver Dezmon Briscoe cracked 100 receiving yards for the second straight game. And quarterback Todd Reesing improvised and maneuvered in the pocket the way we&rsquo;ve grown accustomed.</p><p>On the defensive side of the ball, the Jayhawks had some mighty fine moments, too. Defensive end Max Onyegbule snagged an interception and raced 48 yards for a score. Kansas defenders swarmed Duke quarterbacks for five sacks and two interceptions.</p><p>There was plenty to like about the Jayhawks.</p><p>But there was something missing, too.</p><p>You could really sense it midway through the second quarter, when the game was inexplicably tied 7-7. The Blue Devils opened the contest with a two-play, 87-yard TD drive. They hit a big pass and a big run. Kansas answered with an efficient scoring drive of its own, and then things settled down into a slugfest for the rest of the first quarter and most of the second.</p><p>Duke was able to pressure Reesing and disrupt KU&rsquo;s offense. The Blue Devils also moved the ball all day, racking up 22 first downs for the game. Duke, losers to Richmond this season and 9-52 in its last 61 games, did not look out of its league against KU for much of the afternoon.</p><p>Mangino credited Cutcliffe, the Blue Devils&rsquo; second-year coach, with elevating Duke&rsquo;s play.</p><p>&ldquo;You can see that they&rsquo;re very well-coached,&rdquo; Mangino huffed. &ldquo;They have some outstanding offensive and defensive schemes. Their players play very hard. So I can see some similarities with what Coach Cutcliffe is doing compared with where we were here several years back.&rdquo;</p><p>That might very well be true. But most people coming to Memorial Stadium this year are looking for similarities between this Kansas team and the 2007 team that won 12 games and the Orange Bowl.</p><p>Obviously, that&rsquo;s an unfair standard. And Mangino pretty much explained that KU fans need to whip out their 2007 scrapbooks because his current team doesn&rsquo;t have near the maturity of the 2007 bunch.</p><p>The Orange Bowl team coached itself, Mangino said. Aqib Talib and James McClinton led a veteran defense that policed the entire team.</p><p>Other than Reesing, Jake Sharp, Kerry Meier and Darrell Stuckey, the coaches have to micromanage the current players, Mangino said.</p><p>Reesing thinks his teammates will mature as the season progresses.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s something we have to work on like everything else,&rdquo; Reesing said. &ldquo;All the tools are there.&rdquo;</p><p>It&rsquo;s going to be a few more weeks before we know that. The Hawks play Southern Mississippi, Iowa State and Colorado before their season gets considerably more difficult. They certainly have more than enough time to mature.</p><p>Mangino&rsquo;s teams have always used savvy and discipline to compete against teams with more talent. Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Texas and Missouri will all have as much if not more talent than the Jayhawks. Winning two of those five games is likely to determine whether this season is a success.</p><p>From what I witnessed Saturday, winning two of those games will be a challenge and winning three might be a bit of a miracle.</p><p>The defense looks vulnerable, and the offensive line doesn&rsquo;t appear stout enough to sustain Reesing in a shootout.</p><p>Until further notice, I&rsquo;m in an exclusive relationship with Blaine Gabbert and the Missouri Tigers. On Oct. 24, when the Jayhawks play host to Oklahoma and the Tigers play host to Texas, I&rsquo;ll be in Columbia seeing Blaine.