News and Notes: KU vs. Iowa State

News and notes while wondering if anyone ever really looks forward to going to Ames, Iowa.

• A Jayhawk win at Iowa State would be KU’s fifth straight conference road win and the sixth out of their last seven. It would also be KU’s fifth victory in its last six road games overall.
• A win would also be KU’s fourth straight win after a bye week.
• A victory over the Cyclones would make it two conference openers in a row but just the second time in the last five years and the third out of the last 11 seasons that KU has started conference play with a win.
• A win would make it four in a row over Iowa State.
• The KU defense continues to be stout against the run. If KU holds Iowa State under 200 yards rushing, that will make it 32 games in a row Kansas has done so.
• QB Todd Reesing has thrown for at least 350 yards in three straight games. He needs just 38 passing yards to pass David Jaynes (5,132) for third and 288 to pass Kelly Donohoe (5,382) for second on the KU career passing yardage list. Reesing would be left with career leader Frank Seurer (6,410 yards) to chase with over a season-and-a-half left in his career.
• With a touchdown pass, Reesing would tie Jaynes for the school record with 10 consecutive games throwing a touchdown pass. The last game in which Reesing got skunked was last season against Texas A&M.
• Reesing needs 443 yards of total offense to pass Chip Hilleary (5,888) for second on the KU career list.
• WR Dexton Fields has caught at least one pass in 25 consecutive games he has played in. He needs eight more catches to pass Richie Estell (117) for fifth on the KU career receptions list.
• Both Fields and Dezmon Briscoe need one TD reception to tie Marcus Henry (13) for fifth on the KU career TD receiving list.
• A 100-yard receiving game would tie WR Kerry Meier with four other Jayhawks for the most consecutive 100-yard receiving games at KU (three).
• S Justin Thornton needs one interception to tie Charles Gordon (seven) for third on the KU career interceptions list.
• Kansas is 14-3 in its last 17 games as a ranked team.
• Mark Mangino’s first game as the head coach at Kansas was at Iowa State on Aug. 31, 2002. ISU posted a 45-3 win and awarded the game ball to former KU head coach-turned-ISU dead weight Terry Allen. Mangino has gone 4-1 against the Cyclones since.
• Kansas has won four of its last five road games dating back to the start of the 2007 season.  In the previous 10 years, the Jayhawks were a combined 7-45 on the road.
• KU was 5-0 in day games last season and will be playing its first day game of the year on Saturday.
• Five  Jayhawk opponents are ranked by the Associated Press as top-10 teams heading into this weekend: #1 Oklahoma, #4 Missouri, #5 Texas, #7 Texas Tech and #10 South Florida.  Kansas played five ranked teams during the 1972, 1973, 1995, and 1998 seasons.  However, the most ranked teams the Jayhawks have played in a season has been six in both 1977 and 1978.
• No word on what specials Kelly’s in Westport has in store for Iowa State fans who accidentally make the trip to Lawrence.
• KU is 13-4 all-time on October 4th, including a 20-17 win against Oklahoma in 1997.  The Jayhawks also beat Iowa State, 27-7, on October 4, 1947, beating the Cyclones 27-7. Other noteworthy October 4th goings-on: 350,000 New Yorkers rode 9.1 miles of tracks as the subway opened (1904); Jan Stenerud of Kansas City Chiefs kicked a 55-yard field goal vs. Denver (1970); Ted Williams managed his final game as his Texas Rangers lost to Kansas City, 4-0; the U.S. government shut down due to budget problems (1984); replacement players took NFL fields for the first time during the 1987 players’ strike; Will Clark hit the first grand slam in a National League Championship Series in 12 years (1989); and the Dow closed above 11,800 for the first time ever (2006).
• Happy October 4th birthday to actress Alicia Silverstone (32); cheesy musical artist Jon Secada (46); hip-hop producer Russell Simmons; MILF/political nut Susan Sarandon (62); and vastly-underrated President Rutherford B. Hayes (186).