Having a bye week always feels like the party is going on without you. Saturday seems so pointless. However, I did catch an interesting strategy to get the Jayhawks motivated over at KUsports.com. Bill Mayer proposed that Mark Mangino use fear to motivate the Jayhawks for the "big bad" conference schedule. A few excerpts:

In looking over the final eight games, I think Mangino would be wise to use the element of terror, abject, gnawing fear of failure, to motivate his charges from here on. 

Nebraska, Texas and Missouri to wind up the regular season. KU might be 1-2 at best there. Three major menaces. Tell your guys to be afraid, Mark, real afraid.

The one thing I'm sure of is that the team knows the schedule inside and out. Sitting around and worrying about playing mighty Oklahoma isn't really the best way to get ready for the most important game of the year -- a road date with Iowa State. Also known as the next game.

Did Oregon State look like they were afraid of USC? They should have been but it doesn't work that way. To paraphrase what the KU players were saying last year -- we're all college football players, lifting weights, training, practicing. Everybody wants to get better. The edge is stepping on the field and knowing that you're going to win.

The fear-based tactic -- that's old-school KU thinking ("can't go to back-to-back bowls, good year last year has to be followed by bad season, we're just a basketball school"). The 7-5 fan/media attitude needs to go away. Look around, it's 2008. We sold out for Sam Houston State. We can absolutely beat anyone on our schedule. It's really a matter of how many good wins can we string together. It starts with Iowa State and getting to 4-1. That's really all we need to talk about at this point.