There's no denying Kansas had closed the gap on Kansas State the last two seasons.

Of course, Bill Snyder found a way to extend his career-long utter dominance of his in-state rivals by beating Kansas each of his final two seasons, extending the latest win-streak for K-State in this series to 10 games upon his retirement.

Two years ago, though, K-State won 30-20 in Lawrence but was out-gained by the Jayhawks 482-340. Last year K-State won 21-17, in Manhattan, on a late Alex Delton touchdown run in a game where KU again out-gained K-State, 347-301.

Saturday, however, was a much, much different story.

Kansas fans believed the gap between the two programs would close even further as the first seasons began for new coaches Les Miles and Chris Klieman. The Jayhawks, after all, had their best period of success in the last 40 years for the three years Ron Prince replaced Bill Snyder. KU won all three meetings, went to an Orange Bowl and became - for a brief time - the best program in the state.

Snyder, of course, returned, beat KU in his first year back and never lost to the Jayhawks. He was gone though, now, and Klieman - with his FCS background - couldn't extend the dominance, especially against Miles and his (fired from) LSU pedigree, right?

To be fair, even I thought the gap had closed. I only picked K-State to win this game 34-27, and Kansas had impressed me in back-to-back weeks by taking Texas to the wire in Austin and then beating Texas Tech in Lawrence last week. The game was "sold out," and there promised to be the best environment for football in Lawrence since... ?

None of that proved to be accurate.

No. 22 Kansas State absolutely demolished Kansas, in Lawrence, in the first meeting between Miles and Klieman.

The Wildcats won 38-10, but it wasn't even that close. Kansas got a garbage touchdown in the final seconds, calling multiple time outs to give two different sons Miles has on his team cracks at the end zone from the 1-yard-line. It worked on the third try, and Miles - if nothing else - made sure he had a son score against the Wildcats on Saturday.

That, quite literally, is about all he accomplished in this game.

K-State out-gained Kansas 471-241 and rushed for 342 yards despite playing without its top two tailbacks. At one point late in the third quarter the Wildcats had exactly has many penalty yards (107) as the Jayhawks did total offense.

What that number represented was simple: Despite playing a somewhat sloppy game, K-State completely controlled Kansas.

Any recruit, fan or media member who watched this game had to leave with the same thought, and that is a greater understanding for what these two programs are.

K-State is now 6-2, about to jump into the Top 20 and will head to Texas Saturday with a legitimate opportunity to enter the Big 12 title picture with a win in Austin.

Kansas is 3-6, has lost 11 straight to K-State, disappointed its biggest crowd in years and finished a blowout loss desperately trying to get its head coaches' sons into the end zone.

The two programs certainly do feel Miles apart, as much as ever.

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