Kansas welcomed TCU to Lawrence for their first ever Big 12 game on Saturday. As expected, TCU left town with their first conference win in their back pocket.
The final score was 20-6 and depending on your view point, it could have been even worse if TCU hadn't shot themselves in the foot on more than one occasion losing four fumbles - two inside the red zone - and missing a field goal. But would of, could of, should of.
On the flip side, Kansas had an opportunity to cut the lead to seven with under two minutes remaining but quarterback Dayne Crist fumbled at the one yard line after a 92 yard drive ending any chance the Jayhawks had of winning.
The final score is what it is for a lot of reasons but what Kansas did on Saturday is competed for four quarters. That's not to say Charlie Weis is chalking up moral victories. He's said there's no such thing numerous times, even going so far to say the term doesn't even exist.
What Kansas did on Saturday mirrored the comments he made before the season even started. Take a look back at his comments he made in late July at Big 12 media days talking about the issues he faces during his first season.
"The other one, which I think is maybe even more important, were not the losses last year but how badly they lost so often (six losses by 30 or more points)."
"I think that the first thing you better do is get your team to be more competitive on a weekly basis," Weis said. "Because once you get your team more competitive on a weekly basis, more wins will naturally follow."
"I think that that's the number one job that me together with my staff, I think that we have to permeate all the way down to our players is that we expect them to know what to do and go out and do it hard for 60 minutes.
"And I think that at least gives you a chance," he added.
Mission accomplished for one week, at least.
There's a long season still ahead with plenty of more opportunities for teams to take out their frustrations on the Jayhawks, who are still considered by every other team in the league as the one team that is a "break" in their schedule, even though they would never dare say it publicly.
"A lot of people, me included, wanted to see what Kansas was going to do in a game like this and I think you saw how hard they played for the whole game. We definitely made a major step in the right direction," Weis said following the TCU loss.
Don't think for a second though that Weis was happy. There was plenty of talk in his postgame remarks about only scoring six points, getting shutout in the second half, and the general sloppiness in the game at times.
But when you're starting on the ground floor, any step is a good step. And as he said back in July, once you're more competitive, the wins will follow. Saturday they were competitive.
It was certainly a big turnaround from the team we saw 12 months ago this weekend get beat by Georgia Tech by 42 points while giving up over 600 yards rushing. Saturday they hung around for four quarters against a team that figures to finish in the top half of the Big 12 and give the contenders a run for their money, if they're not a contender themselves.
It wasn't a great start, but as most Kansas fans know already, it could have been a whole lot worse.
