Halftime Musings: Kansas offense impresses, defense preserves lead over Houston

Despite another tense end to the half, the Kansas Jayhawks started hot, building a big lead and holding on against the Houston Cougars to take a two-score margin into the break. Cobee Bryant had two interceptions, three different Kansas players got a sack, and the defense was able to maintain a 28-14 lead.

Here are three things that stood out to me in the first half:

The Offense is Back (mostly)

It has definitely felt like this before this season, but we are finally seeing a Kansas offense that looks to be in control. The Jayhawks have scored a touchdown on every single drive of the first half except the last one, and Jalon Daniels has made multiple spectacular throws with great accuracy to save drives.

But even with Daniels finding his groove, the offense hasn't shorted Devin Neal any of his touches. He has 11 carries and 2 receptions, representing 13 of the 32 plays run by the offense in the first half. They have almost 300 yards of offense in just the first half.

The Defense has controlled the line

Kansas fans would have been worried coming into this game about the ability of Houston to run the ball. While none of their backs have a huge stat line on the year, they have seen some success and the addition of Zeon Chriss to the lineup seemed to open things up against TCU.

But the Kansas defense has shut most of that down, allowing just 42 yards rushing. They have the only three sacks of the game so far, and they chased Chriss out of the game early in the second quarter.

Big Plays and Time Management are still huge concerns.

Despite all the positives, the tendency to give up big plays on defense is still a huge liability. The best example of that came with just 1:40 left in the half, when a simple pass to the left side needed just one missed tackle to spring a huge 52-yard touchdown reception.

And then on the ensuing possession, Kansas stopped the clock unnecessarily for Houston twice to give them a chance to shrink the margin to single score with poor clock management. Those kind of mistakes need to stop if Kansas is going to be competitive the rest of the way.