Dana Holgorsen compares KU preparation to Navy's offense

Dana Holgorsen is familiar with Kansas and the recent history of the football program.

He spent seven years at Texas Tech in the Big 12 against the Jayhawks before taking the head coaching job West Virginia. Now, he is the head coach at Houston and is getting ready to face Kansas again and next year will join the Big 12.

After watching the Jayhawks on film, he said this team looks different than what he has seen in the past.

“This ain’t the Kansas of old,” he said.

Holgorsen said he is still watching film of Kansas to learn more, but said they present new issues to the defense. He went as far as saying they have a similar to style to Navy after showing a lot of the option game last week against West Virginia.

“I'm still studying it,” he said. “I haven't got anything figured out right now. But they're unique on offense now. I mean, they're not going to just drop back like Texas Tech. I mean they’ve got options mentality. It's almost like prepping for Navy, with athletic people that can make plays.”

The offense starts with Jalon Daniels who showed off his running game last week leading the team with 86 yards on the ground.

It is a different look than what they saw their first two games of the season.

“The quarterback, everybody's like, ‘Well how you going to tackle the quarterback?’” Holgorsen said. “Well, it's a little different situation with Daniels who's a really good, dynamic player. He's more of a running back that can throw the thing as opposed to what we faced last week with just drop back after drop back. And if the guy snuck out of there, he was good enough and athletic enough to be able to get 20 yards on you real quick. We got to do a better job of containing that, and we didn't do a very good job of containing that at times.”

Houston is 1-1 and coming off an overtime loss at Texas Tech. The Jayhawks style of offense will be a new challenge for the Cougars defense.

“This is a whole different animal,” he said. “I mean, this is a lot of offense. They're really good up front. They brought a couple of kids with them from Buffalo that can really play that know the offense. This staff's unique now. I mean, they've been together for a while, and they do a lot of stuff. So, it takes continuity within your coaching staff to be able to do all this stuff. We’ve got our work cut out for us defensively.”