WVU’s Reid Carrico (35) gets pressure on Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels, Saturday in Lawrence, Kan. (Photo provided by BlueGoldNews.com)

MORGANTOWN — They were two ships passing in the night, each going in an opposite direction, these football teams that were West Virginia and Kansas.

The Jayhawks were sailing high atop the waves, the Mountaineers struggling against an onrushing tide, simply trying to stay afloat as hungry sharks circled their crippled ship.

It was the Good Ship Lollipop against the Titanic.

Even a final score of 41-10, doesn’t come close to capturing the horror of beating the Mountaineers took as they lost their Big 12 opener and fell to 2-2 while Kansas won its opener and went to 3-1.

“Didn’t execute well, didn’t coach well, didn’t play well, didn’t do anything well,” an obviously disgruntled coach Rich Rodriguez said to radio color broadcaster Jed Drenning as he left the field with a sinking feeling.

They took no prisoners, these Jayhawks.

It seemed like it was first and goal anywhere they had the ball on the field. They had touchdown passes of 39 and 41 yards, a 62-yard TD run and a 96-yard kickoff return.

In truth, there were no excuses for what transpired, but there were reasons.

Kansas was fresh from an off-week. WVU was coming straight off an emotion-draining Backyard Brawl victory.

The Mountaineers were riddled with injuries, playing the game with its third-team running back as Jahiem White and Tye Edwards could only watch. Receivers Preston Fox and Jaden Bray were out. Center Linden Livingston went out during the game with an ankle injury.

But the problem really couldn’t be found in who didn’t play but, instead, in those who did play.

“A lot to work on. Injuries are unfortunate, but they are going to happen. That ain’t the reason we lost,” Rodriguez agreed.

They may have had the hard-edge Coach Rich Rodriguez has been looking for but, on this night, it came with a soft underbelly.

They were outplayed, outscored, outmuscled, outhit and outrun.

There was no suspense in this one right from the start when, on WVU’s first possession the Mountaineers were faced with a third and 2 and quarterback Nicco Marchiol was dropped for a sack.

Two minutes and 19 seconds later KU quarterback Jalen Daniels hit Levi Wentz with the 41-yard touchdown pass and the points began rolling up for KU like the cost of your groceries at the local grocery.

After the teams traded field goals, WVU looked as though it might survive into halftime while still in the game, but Daniels connected with Leshon Williams for the 39-yard touchdown and just before halftime the Jayhawks added a field goal to lead 20-3.

What’s more, the Jayhawks were receiving the second half kickoff and knew what to do with it. Alabama transfer Emmanual Henderson Jr. gathered it in at his own 4 and tossed the ball away 96 yards downfield with a touchdown that screamed out to WVU that it could forget about any comeback in this one.

“The most disappointing of all was the touchdown return,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t know if I’ve had two in my whole career. Here we go, open up the second half trying to get some momentum and give up a kick return. There’s no excuse for that.”

Daniels threw a 7-yard TD pass before the quarter ended to make it 34-3 and Rich Rodriguez sent Jaylen Henderson Jr., the Texas A&M transfer quarterback, in to replace Marchiol and at least had the kind of speed the WVU offense had been lacking.

From the minute he rushed for 19 yards on three straight plays, added in a 32-yard dash and then opened the fourth quarter with a 13-yard run for WVU’s only TD of the evening, you knew you sensed that there would be quarterback controversy this week.

“He gives us a little different dimension, I guess,” Rodriguez said of Henderson. “I thought Jaylen ran hard and Kahlil (Wilkins, who also got some snaps) is a fast guy so we wanted to get him some reps as well.

“We’ll figure out what we’re going to do moving forward.”

As it was, Kansas quickly answered Henderson’s touchdown with one of its own to set the final score on the board.

The statistics certainly didn’t reflect the disparity between the two teams, Kansas gaining 388 total yards to 324 for WVU, but KU also had 137 kickoff return yards to 0 for WVU.

When WVU really needed yards, they couldn’t find them, going 2 for 15 on third down and 0 of 2 on fourth down.

“We got to try to manufacture some run stuff and if we got to throw it, you got to be real on target and precise with your passing,” Rodriguez said.

And Daniels hardly had a dominating statistical night at quarterback as he completed just 12 of 24 passes for 138 yards, actually being quite similar to Marchiol, who was 15 of 27 for 126 yards. But Daniels threw for three TDs while Marchiol had none.

Then the biggest disparity of the night showed Daniels rushing five times for 69 yards, an average of 13.8 yards per try, while Marchiol carried six times for minus-4 yards.

And maybe the most telling statistic about the defense was that safety Fred Perry was the Mountaineers’ leading tackler with four even though he was ejected for targeting late in the first quarter.