LAWRENCE, Kans. — A loss can overshadow even the best individual performances.

Iowa State football players Darren Davis and Ed Williams can attest to that. Davis rushed for 261 yards and Williams tied a school mark for career touchdown receptions in Saturday’s 34-24 loss to Kansas (5-4).

But Saturday’s game probably won’t be remembered for Davis’ or Williams’ feats. No, Saturday’s game will probably be remembered for the two punts Kansas defensive back Jason Harris blocked that were recovered for touchdowns.

It’s not often you see a team amass 490 total offensive yards, not commit a turnover and still lose by 10 points. But that is exactly what ISU (1-7) did on a day when Davis rushed for the fifth-highest yardage total in school history. Saturday’s loss was especially hard to take, Davis said.

“A lot of the guys on the team really took this loss hard,” he said. “We’ve got to do whatever we can to get our heads back up.”

Saturday’s loss for the Cyclones came exactly one week after they beat Baylor, 24-17, for their only victory of the season.

“We really came down from a high from last week,” said Dustin Avey, who was part of a Cyclone defensive effort that limited Kansas to 355 yards. “We came into this game thinking we could win this.”

Harris’ first blocked punt was batted around by Kansas’ Gene Erb on the ISU one-yard line before being recovered by Dustin Curry in the end zone. Joe Garcia’s point-after gave Kansas a 17-3 lead with 14:42 left in the second quarter.

“It was just a protection problem for us,” ISU Head Coach Dan McCarney said. “[Kansas] had a 5-3 overload. They had five people on one side of the line, and three on the other.”

Harris also blocked an ISU punt in the end zone that was recovered by Michael Allen to give Kansas a 27-3 lead.

“I tried to shorten up my steps after the first blocked punt, but it was difficult because I was backed up against my own end zone,” said Cyclone punter Carl Gomez.

ISU made a game of it after falling behind, 34-3, early in the third quarter. Williams completed the rally by catching a 9-yard touchdown pass from Todd Bandhauer with three seconds left in the game. The touchdown reception gave Williams 15 for his career, which ties him Keith Krepfle for the school mark.

“We did some good things in the second half,” Bandhauer said. “That’s something that we can build on.”

Bandhauer also completed touchdown passes to Daman Green and Gerrick Bivins in the fourth quarter. Bivins’ touchdown was made sweeter because earlier he had a touchdown reception called back by an ISU penalty.

“There isn’t anything sweet about losing, but I saw some positives out there,” McCarney said. “I’m proud of the way we were able to come back.”

Davis methodically gained his yards by bumping off right or left tackles for an average of six yards per carry, his longest gain was 25.

“I like getting into the open field and making the tacklers miss me,” Davis said.

The way he is able to cut sharply to allude would-be tacklers, it would seem natural that Davis would prefer the turf at Kansas’ Memorial Stadium. That’s not the case though, according to Davis.

“I prefer running on grass because you don’t get turf burns,” he said. “I’m able to get some good cuts in with artificial turf, but I would still rather run on grass.”

Davis’ 261 rushing yards is the fourth-best performance ever against the Jayhawks. Only Barry Sanders, Calvin Jones and Mike Rozier rushed for more against Kansas.