Weis Era Over.... Clint Bowen 39th KU FB HC
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Truly disappointing. More money that should be spent on basketball housing going to ensure football coaches get early retirement.
Bad management by the AD in the Weiss hiring, tenure, and dismissal.
Weiss = symptom.
Zenger = cause.
Treat the cause, not just the symptom.
Looks like its time for an AD hire.
I nominate Bill Self for AD.
No scratch that.
I don’t want to lose him as basketball coach.
I nominate Bill Self to hire the AD.
And then I want Bill Self to work with the AD to hire the football coach.
It takes a good coach to recognize a good AD and a good coach, if your Chancellor can’t recognize a good AD.
One does not have to be in the same sport to recognize a great coach, or in the AD profession to recognize who would be a good AD, if one is a coach.
Self is our best shot at finding and recognizing a competent AD and head football coach and we ought to be using him right now.
He won’t come cheap.
He will require new player housing.
He will require higher salaries for his assistants.
He may require a new hair club for men expense account.
But he will get it done and get it done the right way.
Rock Chalk!
Post Script a day or so later: I am going to modify this take to say that unless Chancellor Little and AD Zenger have been basing hiring and firing choices on a broader plan, like some sort of planned remediation of potential problems remaining in a recently scandal ridden athletic department, the way they have handled the Gill and Weis tenures seems is difficult for this layman to understand, much less appreciate. But as I have posted on some other threads here, it seems at least a possibility that the handling of the Gill and Weis tenures might possibly reflect some kind of on-going remediation process that we outsiders lack the level of training and inside information to appreciate. So: I want to cut Mr. Zenger, and all concerned, some slack and I hope some day that circumstances permit them to bring some more insight about this process to those fans like me that find this all rather puzzling and suboptimal.
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Clint Bowen for five!!!
No more bailouts!
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Man, the silence from those that wanted to run Gill and wanted Weis is deafening.
Success has many fathers.
Failure is an orphan.
Early buyouts are immaculate conceptions.
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Now is the time for Bill Self to ask for another raise and settle for player housing.
Go, Bill, go!!!
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Reserved for back fill at a future date.
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@jaybate-1.0 Am I on the right page jb? Oh, this IS the “Stir the pot” thread. LOL
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@globaljaybird think Jaybate is having a good weekend?
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@Crimsonorblue22 Can’t tell girl, surely the motivation is there. Might just need a little bit of a nudge to ramp up the treadmill.
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I absolutely was happy to have ANY football coach over Turner Gill! Gill had to go. Blame Lew for the no-buyout clause. While Charlie Weis was a true football mind (this Chiefs fan saw Weis’ playcalling put B-grade Matt Cassel in the ProBowl as one of the top3 passers in the NFL that season)…but Weis’ tenure at KU didnt go as we hoped due to several reasons, most importantly his pro-style O needing quality execution by pro-quality players, and above all: quality pass-protection. No KU team under Weis has been able to give consistent pass-protect, thus guys with absolute motivation to succeed (Crist & Heaps), instead had rare chance to pass, had WR dropsy, and got exposed as non-mobile. Dayne Crist did very well as a frosh QB before he got hurt. Jake Heaps set several BYU QB records as a FROSH. Sorry Weis couldnt get it done in the expected timeframe. Hindsight suggests we could have used Heaps? Maybe Harwell, King, & Pierson can catch what hit em in the numbers?
This is a complex problem at KU. The search goes on. But beware, people, for 1 day, not too far hence, Bill Self will move on in search of new challenges.
I simply wish the KU football players, Charlie Weis, and all connected with KU football all the best to each. RCJH.
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Although I act like I don’t care too much about KU football, I do want to see us have a competitive team. It sure makes the fall more interesting.
Like basketball, I know little about football, so this two cents worth is truly two cents. Let’s find a coach who can recruit. Our cupboard has been so bare recently it’s no wonder we don’t produce wins except against the directional schools. When was our last draft pick, does anyone know?
I’d be excited to see us play in any bowl at this point, that means we won half our games. Success builds on that. So get the coach who can get decent players and who can win us 6 games. Otherwise, it’s just another long fall til November.
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@wissoxfan83 without looking it up, Denver’s secondary has 2 Jhawks, plus a 2nd string lb Steven Johnson and he’s also on special teams. There’s more!
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I bet Kevin Sumlin would take our job mid season if we give him basketball tix
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@ralster Say it ain’t so !!
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This whole thing has both good & bad sides to it. It shows KU is serious about W/L results, but it also shows impatience. We didnt see a load of 4-5star players coming, but now, what’s the attraction to prospective recruits? Maybe we have $ to spend on another HC, but look at what’s been wasted the last 5yrs.
Someone tell me where is the wisdom of not having a contract that pays out ZERO on the day a coach gets fired for not getting the job done? Or give them a $50k severence pay, but NOT million$!
Ron Powlus needs to go. Quickly. We’ve changed some position coaches due to lackluster play (Grunhard, o-line; WR coach; O-coordinator), and QB play specifically = horrible.
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The Weis era was a mistake when it started. First, firing Turner Gill after just two seasons was a mistake. Gill wasn’t the right guy, but giving any coach only two years ensures that a senior on your team will have played for three different coaches during their time on campus. That is not good. Too much turnover in a short time span.
But even ignoring that, Weis was always the wrong man. He’s a subpar recruiter coaching at a school that needs an exceptional recruiter in order to be competitive. On top of that, Weis is not a good head coach at all. He proved that at Notre Dame. Weis is an offensive coordinator. He is not a head coach. He cannot handle the #1 job. Look at his time at both ND and KU. His offenses got steadily worse the longer he was there, even though that is his strength. Why? He can’t handle the responsibilities of being head coach and still run a competent offense.
And then Weis sealed the deal that he was the wrong man by dismissing 29 different players from the team, many without even meeting with them. Think about that for a second. He dismissed over two dozen players and, according to several accounts, at least half of those dismissed were dismissed without Weis even sitting down and talking to them either one on one or addressing the team. He basically just got rid of a lot of the guys Gill recruited. Look back at the freshmen that played significantly as Gill’s only full recruiting class - Weis kicked almost half of those guys off the team. It was as if he wanted to just get rid of Gill’s “guys”. Well, even he admitted that backfired on him, but I don’t think he even realized how badly.
See, to do well at KU you have to recruit the KC metro area well. You basically have to plant your flag in Kansas City. There are a handful of schools in the Kansas City area that put out consistent D1 talent - Rockhurst, Blue Springs, Olathe North are three of the best. Weis dismissed a player from each of those schools. You think that didn’t get back to those schools, the coaches there and, more importantly, the guys that they played with in high school. Talk about burning bridges that you haven’t crossed yet. Weis basically ruined his chances at being a power recruiter in the Kansas City area.
So how does KU improve from here. Well, the first step is to hire a new head coach that is going to put an emphasis on recruiting. Not just recruiting juco guys to make it “respectable”, but recruiting HS kids to build the program. KU is at an enormous talent deficit right now in football. KU has maybe 15 guys on the entire roster that could play at the other Big 12 schools. That’s probably it. Expand it to all of the Power 5 and you might find 25 guys on KU’s roster that could play at other power 5 schools. The rest would be backups, wouldn’t see the field, or couldn’t make the roster. No matter what your system is, you can’t win if you are at that kind of talent deficit.
Second, KU needs to find a football identity. In the uniform thread, there was discussion about Oregon and all of their uniforms. However, Oregon’s blur offense is more popular than even the uniforms. The blur is really Oregon’s identity. KU is not an Alabama or Oklahoma or Texas or Ohio State, where you have a statue of Bear Bryant or Billy Sims’ Heisman, or Bevo or dotting the I as a tradition everyone recognizes for football. KU has to create an identity.
Third, although this goes somewhat to the first point, KU needs to help cultivate in state talent by working with coaches at some of the schools in the Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita areas. This point will probably be controversial, but hear me out. In the state of Kansas, the best high school football coaches are, for the most part, not at the schools where the best athletes are. There are lots of good coaches out there, but coaching at schools like Smith Center, or Louisburg or Madison doesn’t help KU because those schools don’t consistently produce D1 talent because they don’t consistently have D1 athletes. There are D1 athletes in Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City, but a lot of those players are not coached well (or don’t even come out for football). That’s a problem for KU because KU desperately needs those players. If you go down to Texas or Georgia or Florida, the best coaches coach at the schools with the top athletes. That’s why Miami Central and Miami Northwestern consistently are so good. They have tremendous athletes and some of the best coaches in the state. The best athletes get the best coaching and develop the most, so there is always an abundance of talent. Kansas has less people, so the amount of talent will always be less, but you can’t exacerbate that problem by also having some of your best athletes end up being poorly coached. Whoever the next coach is should take an interest in working with the HS coaches in those three cities (which is legal under NCAA rules) to help them teach proper techniques to their players.
And that leads to my last point. This is going to take some time. KU is not going to get good in the next three years. There’s not enough talent on the current roster to change where we are at in a couple of years, and its doubtful that the overall talent level will change enough in a couple of years to have much of an impact. It’s going to be 2018 or 2019 before we can see sustainable results if this is done right. We will see some incremental results in recruiting wins, plus results in the strength and conditioning program over the next couple of years, but as far as win and loss results, KU will be a 3-5 win program for the next 2-3 years at best. But, if its done right, the kids they recruit next year may go to the first of many bowls when they are seniors.
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@justanotherfan did you watch the Bowen pressor this am? I wish he could be the guy for us! He’s passionate about KU fb! These last 4 years we have missed out on many great instate kids. Great points.
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When Nolan Cromwell left the pro coaching ranks to take an assistant coaching job at Texas A&M I thought here is KU’s next head FB coach ready and waiting for the right timing to take over the KU football program. But he left A&M quickly to move back to take another assistant coaching role with the pros. I get the feeling he doesn’t want to coach & recruit at the college level. I hope I’m wrong. I knew Nolan in college and he is tops in character, let alone athleticism. And he’s coached athletes on at least two two Super Bowl championship teams - I believe he could be the answer. He even owns a farm somewhere near Lawrence.
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Really a level headed, top-notch analysis. Bravo.
Still, I cannot help but wonder about the following: was Weis apparently perhaps never anything more than a broom–a manageable guy at the butt end of a career that would do exactly as he was told to do for a couple of years, for the retirement bones, while Zenger went through a long discrete process of deliberate, controlled discovery. Were there perhaps issues and risks of issues that had to be resolved before it made sense to decide on the super dynamic guy it would take to turn it around? Such super dynamic guys would have reason to steer clear of an athletic department that was not yet totally disinfected.
BGL and Zenger were perhaps riddled with fears about what kinds of skeletons were going to surface for a few years after Scalpingate and LewGate and ManginoGate. Those three scandals made KUAD and KU football possible, if not actual, athletic superfund sites. As the saying goes, you have to stop digging the hole deeper before you start trying to really fix things. Was Weis apparently a care taker that stopped the digging, while Zenger and BGL undertook risk management activities to achieve a comfort level with proceeding to the actual rebuilding? Maybe. Look at all of the athletic programs that have had big scandals in football and/or basketball. A care taker coach is almost always hired for the initial phase of clean up; then when the higher ups that expect to survive the clean up process reach a comfort level that all of the discovery and cleanup is complete, out goes the caretaker, and in comes the Phase Two remediation of actually building a sustainable winning program.
One can argue, as you and I have at times, that firing Gill after two seasons was the wrong move, and that hiring Weis was the wrong move from a narrow point of view of building a winning team starting at time zero. But perhaps BGL and then Zenger believed (and perhaps rightly) that they had to think in broader terms of a potential super fund site clean up. The university’s billion dollar budget is so vastly much more important than KUAD’s significant, but tiny in relation, budget that KUAD and the fund raising foundations (i.e., all the private 501.c3s) had to be gone over with a fine tooth comb to make sure they created no further blow back to either the Chancellor, or the vast budget the Chancellor perhaps owes her ultimate allegiance to managing. Really, KUAD is small potatoes to the long term, dare I say institutional, players. Its only relevance to them is keeping the lights on in the minor sports for compliance purposes. Its only big risk appears to be as a possible back door exploit by possibly predatory private oligarchs seeking to leverage athletic department influence into university and state political economic influence.
I believe the Chancellor perhaps learned a very chastening lesson from Scalpingate. Assuming the Federal investigation really did not discover any higher ups involved (i.e., assuming that they did not find higher up connections, or serious organized crime involvement, that the Feds simply could not find enough evidence to prosecute), then the Chancellor probably had to look in the mirror and wonder, “OMG, if a bunch of amateurs could rig a scheme like this for so long, imagine how easy it must have been for some really professional bad guys to have insinuated themselves into all of these 501.c3 spin offs. Holy cow! There could still be stuff buried out their that hasn’t surfaced. And that means more potential fiduciary liability for me and more risk to the university budget!!!”
Looked at from this broader perspective, BGL has perhaps just been doing her job skillfully and conservatively by playing the Phase 1 remediation process very close to the vest, before moving to Phase 2 remediation. Firewalling phase one and phase two, if such were done, might make some sense to pros in a way that laymen like us cannot fully appreciate.
Of course, we are on the outside looking in in our speculations and so it could just be rank incompetence. But over the years I have come to believe that most high ranking officials are not dummies. They frequently get out maneuvered and abused early on in their tenures, as others try to cost shift some of their dirty laundry onto the incoming newbie, but if they are decisive and quick processors, which they often are, then the actions they take that seem suboptimal on one level, take on a look of considerable astuteness when viewed at the broader level of the problem they are likely working at.
But as an outsider looking in from afar, I cannot yet tell what has gone on with a high level of confidence. I can only point out that the Gill firing and the Weis hiring and firing do not appear to make much sense from a narrow perspective of simply building a winning team, but do possibly make some sense from the perspective of managing unknowns in a troubled athletic department and its related fund raising foundations that might have been vulnerable to even more problems than those that surfaced.
Rock Chalk!!!
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@JayhawkRock78 love Nolan Cromwell !! Him and Bowen on staff would establish a foundation, and alumni would support. Maybe??? I can’t believe our supporters keep tossing money on the fire, makes you wonder how they can successful?
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Money became very cheap to a certain level of wealth during the untraceable bail out years.
But not to worry.
Fools and their monies are soon parted, as Grandpappy jaybate 1.o used to say.
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@jaybate-1.0 I like grand pappy!
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I strongly disagree on the firing of Turner Gill. I personally think he should have not been hired in the first place since he had not shown before the success needed to coach a BCS program; the highlight of his resume was one lone average season that even Jason Whitlock thought had more to do with luck that with actual excellence on the field.
More importantly, Gilll inherited a program with decent talent and two years remove from an Orange Bowl win, brand new state-of-the-art facilities and drove it into the ground. Not only the team was being trashed on the field, the academic environment was a disaster and headed for potential probation and morale was at an all time low…which is a lot to say considering it is the KU football team.
Hiring a coach at KU is not going to be easy. When Weis was hired, several others were considered including Mike Leach, that someone mentioned above (and who I would have liked a lot) but he passed and went to Washington; there is no way he comes to KU. Let’s face it, KU is not a desired destination for an established coach, now way, no how, no ma’am. KU will have to find an up and coming coach with potential that is willing to take a chance on a school that changes coaches every two years and has to recruit against the likes of OU, OSU, Texas., Texas Tech., Baylor…and yes. KSU. Most likely scenario is KU select an assistant coach wanting to move up to a head coaching position.
As far as in-sate talent. Kansas does not produce enough in-state players to support a programs. On a good year, it might produce 3 or 4 major programs candidates. The current class has no 5-star players and 4 4-star players which are going to Oklahoma State, Tennessee and K-State, all much more prestigious programs than KU. To attract this type of players, KU will have to get a lot better and it will be a slow and long term project; no coach in the land will turn KU programs around in two years.
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Weis Fired: Ed Orgeron, others next in line for Kansas job
Deconstruction of Charlie Weis: Where Kansas goes from here
With the search on for the next KUFBHC I really hate realizing that this article and Tait’s is probably more correct than we’d all like to imagine. When I remove the crimson and blue colored glasses
and stop drinking the KU Kool-Aid 
I come to the realization that Dodd, Tait and Feldman are probably right that our next coach will have to be someone with ties to KU.First, there is no way Morris is leaving 1.3 million at Clemson to come to KU even for a Weis sized salary. Same goes for Harbaugh even if he isn’t coaching the 49ers next season. There will be a much prettier job out there for him (like Michigan, or any other Power 5 school with a vacancy…) N̶o̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶N̶e̶x̶t̶!̶
There’s not a coach on the current staff I’d want us to promote and keep as the new HC. I know Weis is the one that got fired but I can’t imagine he’s the only one that has put us in the position we’re in. Are we to believe Weis was responsible for all of the poor play and execution we’ve seen? N̶o̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶N̶e̶x̶t̶!̶
Any up and comer that doesn’t have ties directly to KU (Narduzzi, Frost, Herman) would need to be institutionalized if they decided to come here and to risk their chance of getting big time Power 5 gigs!! They’d be better served getting jobs at mid-majors like SMU, ECU, Marshall, ect. N̶o̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶N̶e̶x̶t̶!̶
Really our best chances at getting a decent HC that can hopefully turn things around are guys like Beaty that could recruit better players all around. His A&M classes are awesome and he knows Texas (granted that’s at a hot name like A&M). Warinner is another guy that I mentioned above and he’s done great things with an inexperienced O-line at tOSU twice now. And we all know our offensive line could use some sprucing up. Not sure Beck is the right guy. I know it says he’s trending and he has Nebraska (5-0) on the right path this year but in the previous few years they’ve been rather bad and this year they squeaked by McNeese State.
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Pursuing Kansas talent is not an either or proposition.
You are right that KU cannot get by on Kansas talent alone.
But that just means that KU has to get its share of what top talent the state does produce in order reduce its dependence on foreign oil, so to speak.
Seriously, over the years, the state of Kansas has produced some great football players, just not in great numbers.
KU’s modest football legacy would be drastically diminished without John Hadl, John Riggins, Bob Douglas, Nolan Cromwell, John Zook, and many others more recently that went on to have dominant, and sometimes Hall of Fame pro careers. KU cannot afford to let the great ones get away, even as it depends heavily on foreign oil.
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Back fill here.
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@Kip_McSmithers love it. Need more from you!
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In hindsight, I agree that Gill was overmatched. We basically have a situation where both Gill and Weis were bad hires, meaning that KU basically had two consecutive mistake hires for their football program.
However, I disagree about what Gill inherited. KU went 5-7 the year before Gill was hired. That team graduated the program’s all time leading passer, #10 all time rusher, the top 2 all time leading receivers and a healthy portion of the defense. Gill didn’t get Reesing, Meier, Briscoe, Sharp, Stuckey, etc. Whoever got hired had a rebuild in front of them. Gill was overmatched by the task, but it wasn’t like he had Aqib Talib and the Orange Bowl secondary coming back, plus Reesing and that offense returning.
The point I made about in-state recruiting is not that KU can survive on just in state players. However, KU needs to maximize what they get in-state because KU also cannot survive on second or third tier players from Texas, Florida, California, etc. That’s what makes recruiting the KC area so important. KU is the closest D1 school to the KC area. 10-12 D1 players come out of KC every year. For KU to maximize its success, they need to land 5-7 of those kids every single year. That’s also why I make the point about working with the high school coaches in Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City. KU needs a talent upgrade and the best way to do that is to upgrade the nearby talent as much as possible because that is the talent KU can most easily recruit. As @jaybate-1.0 said, KU can’t simply rely on foreign oil.
I absolutely agree that whoever comes to KU has a long, tough row to hoe. This is a 5 year project if it will be done right. Weis tried to short cut it, but I can’t really blame him. At his age, why would he want to put in that kind of effort on a 5 year rebuild job. KU needs to hire someone young (under 45) that won’t mind putting in the work to rebuild over the next 5 years and will be willing to stay at KU (with the rising salary that will come with success) long after that.
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Don’t forget that the 5-7 record was in large part due to the internal situation of the program more so than talent, where you had players (and parents) crying and whining about the “mean” coach and the Athletic Director getting involved and undermining Mangino. Had the fat man been given support or left alone to do his job, the outcome would have been likely different.
As far as “KU can’t simply rely on foreign oil.” …as a matter of fact it absolutely has to rely on “foreign oil” since the state does not produce enough “domestic oil” to supply even one major program, let alone two, with the “other” state program being in football what KU is in basketball…and the basketball program, even when it regularly takes the top state players, it still relies heavily on “foreign oil” wouldn’t you agree?
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I agree that KU has to depend on out of state talent. However, when there is in-state talent, KU needs to get it. How are you going to get a good player from across the country to come here when you can’t get the guy from across the street?
My point in referencing the 5-7 record was that Mangino had Reesing, Meier, Briscoe, Sharpe, Stuckey, Chris Harris, and Justin Thornton. That’s basically the whole offense as far as skill guys and most of the secondary. Even if you argue that Mangino could have replicated his 7-5 regular season from the year prior, he still was in line to regress just because of everything he was losing talentwise. Any way you slice it, 2010 was not at all similar to the Orange Bowl year or either of the previous two seasons. You had a new guy at every offensive skill position, a brand new secondary in a pass happy conference and very little depth because the firing occurred at the end of the season, so there wasn’t much time for whomever the new coach would be to assemble a full class. I just get frustrated at the “we were three years removed from the Orange Bowl” argument when that 2010 team did not have a single player on it that had a meaningful role on that Orange Bowl team, and in fact the 2010 team didn’t have many players that played a meaningful role on the Insight Bowl team in 2008.
The best players on the Orange Bowl team were Talib, Fine, McClinton, McAnderson, Reesing, Briscoe, and Meier. Not one of those guys was on the 2010 team. The best players on the Insight team were Reesing, Briscoe, Meier, Sharp, Jonathan Wilson, Stuckey, Harris and Thornton. Only Harris remained. This was an entirely different team from a team that was probably an 8-5 or at best 9-4 type team. 2010 was at best a 6 win team even if Mangino had stayed.
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How are you going to get the top talent? KSU has a superior program and they get first dibs and whoever else is left will likely go to a big time program. In any case and as I mentioned, the state produces too few top players to make much of a difference.
As far as the comment “2 years removed from an Orange Bowl win” it was not meant to be that we had the same personnel, we did not; however, the good will and standing of the program at the time were good enough to influence recruiting, much like Coach Self uses the winning tradition and players in NBA to recruit basketball players. What is KU going to tell now a top recruit to get him to come to Lawrence? We won ONE conference game in 3 years? Yeepee!!! How do you think that is going to work? At this time all KU can offer is playing time and top recruits will get that anyway…at a better program. Best bet is to find 3-star recruits with high potential and hope they develiop, that is what Mangino did anyway. Replacing coaches every couple of years does not help and raises all kinds of red flags with potential recruits.
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@JayHawkFanToo we do have some good D backs in the NFL.
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@JayHawkFanToo " KSU has a superior program and they get first dibs "
That looks pretty weird to an old geezer like me. It’s true, just looks weird. I remember when you could get KSU season tickets with a $5.00 purchase of gas any where in town.
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I know, In the late 70s Playboy did a story about the worse programs ever in football and KSU was selected #1.
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In this century KU has had 2 All-American and currently has 7 players in the NFL. I am sure that Bill Snyder mention this while naming the 13 All-American KSU has had in the same time and the 13 players in the NFL, while casually mentioning Jordy Nelson’s play for the Packers…just sayin’
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KSU is absolutely the better program right now, but KSU is also still in Manhattan, over 100 miles from Kansas City, and that matters quite a bit. I know quite a few people on the high school scene in Kansas City and from talking to them, it’s still a task to get those KC kids to want to go to Manhattan. Some will go, obviously, but if KU shows it has a direction, there are quite a few kids in the KC area that would be more than happy to pick KU over KSU.
Out in western Kansas that won’t be the case, but the bulk of Kansas talent is going to come from Wichita and the corridor between Kansas City and Topeka. KU has a huge location advantage along that critical corridor between Kansas City and Topeka.
As for tradition, tradition is a funny thing. Does it matter to recruits that KU basketball has a tradition? Of course, because that means going to KU means you will compete for conference and national titles every single year. Does K-State’s football tradition mean that? Not quite. It means you will go to a bowl just about every year, but let’s remember that Snyder has only led KSU to 2 conference titles in his tenure. KSU’s football tradition is more about 9 win seasons than conference and national title relevance. In that respect, KU is behind, but not the same distance as say, KU and Oklahoma or Nebraska. For all that Snyder has done at K-State, he has not been able to get KSU over that hump and make them a national force. They are good, but they aren’t a “I’m gonna go to K-State because I want to win a Big 12 and a national title” good.
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@justanotherfan KSU also has close to 50 kids from the state of Kansas on their roster and if they want to play close to home it’s " I MAY not win a NC or Conference Championship, but I’ll get to play in front of a full house every home game and it’s better than my other in-state alternative ".
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A couple of thoughts.
I read somewhere that the average person remembers or is aware of facts only his age minus 10-15 years, ergo the average 18 year old remember or is aware of what happened roughly in the last 3-8 years. So the average HS recruits is looking at that short of a period of time and is really no cognizant of what happened before that. Ask any basketball (less players to remember) who were the starting players at KU 10 years ago and give you 10:1 odds that 8 out of ten recruits cannot even name 3 and only if those players made it to the NBA, and I also give you 10:1 odds that the same 8 out of 10 do not know who was the National Champion 10 years ago. In other words, tradition matters only to a point, and with the current generation Internet, smart phones) where immediate results are the norm, 3 to 5 years is probably the limit of what they care to remember.
Now, KSU is not only the better football program now, it has been a the better program for close to 25 years (except for a couple of years in the Prince/Mangino era), and it will be as long as Snyder is there. KU will be fighting an uphill battle recruiting against KSU for the foreseeable future. You don’t think KSU football is a force? Except for the Prince years, KSU has been in the top half of the conference consistently, where KU, except for short run in the Mangino era, has consistently been at the bottom…1 conference win in 3 years will do it to you.
You also mention distance. Wichita is actually 30 something miles closer to Manhattan that it is to Lawrence and Topeka is only 20 something miles closer to Lawrence than Manhattan. If you look at the entire state, 80%-90% of it is closer to Manhattan than it is to Lawrence.
In realistic terms, does distance make difference? For the top players its does not. 5-start recruits will go play for powerhouses regardless of where are located since their objective is to get exposure to move on to the NFL; BTW, the state currently has no 5-star recruits. It is the same case for 4-star recruits (4 in the state) and 3 of them are going out of state and one to KSU. The 3-star recruits are role players and maybe starters at major programs but likely starters at the smaller programs, and given the opportunity, will go to a good program than a below average program that is closer since the exposure is much larger. The 2-star players (or below) usually will be not see a lot of playing time at the bigger programs and are recruited by the smaller programs and likely will go to the best program that offers an opportunity. While you cannot build a consistent top program with 2-star players, a good recruiter will spot the diamond in the rough in this group, much like Mangino and company did with the players that became the core of the Orange Bowl team. Now, when it comes to JuCo players, Kansas has the biggest percentage in the top 100, but as we all saw in the last couple of years, it really does not work that well when building a program. There is a reason why those players are playing JuCo football in the first place.
If you want exposure, KU is not the place where you want to go. I (a Kansas resident, Olathe) am not not able to watch KU’s first couple of games on TV while I am able to watch every KSU (and MU ) game. Heck, thanks to Mr. Zenger I cannot even watch all of KU basketball games, while again, I can watch every KSU (and MU) basketball game…of course, along with the 20-30 other people in the entire country I can watch every race of the women’s rowing team and every competition of the women’s golf and cross country teams as well.
Just enough rambling and assorted thoughts; I am sure some will agree and some will not.
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@JayHawkFanToo so tell me why juco kids are playing juco? I’ve seen a lot of Jayhawk con. Fb. I’ve seen Shawn Hill play, and Cordarrelle Patterson. Hutch and Butler would beat quite a few D1 teams. I know some are sent down a year instead of sitting, act scores for others. Tennessee had Patterson running track. Facilities are pretty nice too. Just wondered.
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If a players has the talent, grades and no disciplinary issues, he play in a regular 4 year program and does not go to JuCo… A lot of the players at JuCo are there because of grades (which will be an ongoing problem) or issues related to eligibility or discipline. Look at how many top rated JuCo players Weis brought and how many are still on the team.
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@JayHawkFanToo disagree w/you on this!
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Back in the day (1970’s) JUCO was for kids who weren’t good enough for Div 1 yet, or had academic challenges, or maybe borderline money problems OR hadn’t matured yet. I would guess most JUCO kids with size/speed/athleticism today can outperform a high school grad-maybe even a college frosh or soph/ but then the stud high school recruits leave the JUCCO kids in the dust as they develope. Sure, some JUCCO kids are late bloomers, but not many.
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I did not say that “all” JuCo kids were there because of off the field issues, but “a lot” of them are. No question that some will become very good Division I players, but those are not the norm, they re the minority.
As far as Can Newton, you actually made my point. Here is a snippet about him:
Newton initially attended the University of Florida, where he was a member of the Florida Gators football team in 2007 and 2008. As a freshman in 2007, Newton beat out fellow freshman quarterback John Brantley as the back-up for eventual Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. He played in five games, passing for 40 yards on 5-of-10 and rushing 16 times for 103 yards and three touchdowns.[9] In 2008, during his sophomore season, Newton played in the season opener against Hawaii but suffered an ankle injury and took a medical redshirt season.[10]
On November 21, 2008, Newton was arrested for the theft of a laptop computer from another University of Florida student. He was subsequently suspended from the team after the laptop was found to be in his possession.[11] Campus police “tracked the stolen laptop to the athlete…Newton tossed the computer out his dorm window in a humorously ill-advised attempt to hide it from cops.”[12] All charges against Newton were dropped after he completed a court-approved pre-trial diversion program. “I believe that a person should not be thought of as a bad person because of some senseless mistake that they made,” said Newton in 2010. “I think every person should have a second chance. If they blow that second chance, so be it for them.”[13] Newton announced his intention to transfer from Florida three days before the Gators’ national championship win over Oklahoma. In January 2009, Newton transferred to Blinn College in Brenham, Texas to play for head coach Brad Franchione, son of Dennis Franchione.
So, in fact, Cam Newton did not start at JuCo but transferred to one because off-the field issues, and once things cooled he transferred to Auburn and he spend a good portion of the season mired in an eligibility controversy and at one time was suspended and then reinstated by the school. Like I said, a lot of the JuCo payers come with a lot of baggage.
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@JayHawkFanToo still disagree!
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This is what the forum is all about and as long as we do it respectfully, we can always agree to disagree.
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@JayHawkFanToo I want you to change your mind!! Did you read the lists? Aaron Rodgers- to name a few. Have you ever watched juco fb, jhawk conference?
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I don’t disagree that some very good players come from JuCo but you keep naming players that are the exception rather than the rule. Aaron Rodgers was not recruited by any any majors school and had to go the JuCo route. Saying that JuCos are a source of top talent is the equivalent of saying that KU is the way to make it to the NFL…yes, KU has sent players to the NFL, some were even outstanding (although not lately), but if you have the potential and talent to play in the NFL, KU is just not the way to get there.
Here is a blurb about Rogers start:
Despite his record-setting statistics, Rodgers attracted little interest from Division I programs. In a 2011 interview with E:60, he attributed the relative lack of attention in the recruiting process to his unimposing physical stature as a high school player at 5’10 and 165 lb. Rodgers had wanted to attend Florida State University and play under Bobby Bowden, but was rejected.[22] He garnered only an offer to compete for a scholarship as a walk-on from Illinois. He declined the invitation, and considered quitting football to study for law school.
He was then recruited to play football at Butte Community College in Oroville, a junior college about 15 miles (25 km) southeast of Chico. Rodgers threw 26 touchdowns in his freshman season,[24] leading Butte to a 10–1 record, the NorCal Conference championship, and a No. 2 national ranking. While there, he was discovered by the California Golden Bears’ head coach Jeff Tedford, who was recruiting Butte tight end Garrett Cross. Tedford was surprised to learn that Rodgers had not been recruited earlier. Because of Rodgers’ good high school scholastic record, he was eligible to transfer after one year of junior college instead of the typical two
He was the proverbial late bloomer that overcame his physical limitations and the stereotype of what a QB should look like. Again, there are similar players that make it to D I and the NFL but they are not the norm. The JuCos in Kansas are famous for having good football since they seem to be a favorite destination for major programs needing a place to “park” players with issues until they get resolved, even KU did that a couple of times in the last few years,
I believe I mentioned in a previous posts that Kansas has the largest number of players in the Juco Top 100 ranking; so yes, I do follow the Jucos not a lot but some and mostly related to players biding their time, but I still believe that the JuCo road to Division I and potentially the NFL is definitely “the road less traveled.” KU took over 20 JuCo transfers last season including top ranked and 4-star rated juco transfers Marquel Combs and Chris Martin and how did that worked out for KU? Not too well, wouldn’t you agree?
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I read Taits 4 things to know about KU football’s upcoming coaching search and one thing leaves me worried. The last sentence in the first point. "But the heavy lifting in the search has yet to begin and may not start for some time." Now I’m not saying we need to hire someone tomorrow, or even the next day, or even this month, but we are likely be one of, if not the least attractive job out there should we let all of the other schools that will be aiming for the same HCs to come and take the one we want and could lure in??? The two guys (Lincoln Riley and Phil Montgomery) I mentioned in the other coaching thread are just like Josh Heupel in the fact that they are "on the radar of a lot of ADs across the country."- per Dave Miller at National Football Post.–> Possible Replacements for Chuck. Can we really afford to sit and wait until the end of the season?? I really hope the comment from the KUSports article is completely wrong or just some smoke and mirrors and actually Zenger is out there actively pursuing and talking to potential KUFBHC candidates.
Am I the only one that thinks KU and SMU will battle over the same HC candidates and is incredibly embarrassed by that??
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@Kip_McSmithers I for one think our football program is embarrassing, so yes to compete with SMU for a Football coach is embarrassing as well. Perhaps it is because they have deeper coffers?
