chiefsnorth
10-15-2010, 09:34 AM
Blame for loss falls on Gill
LAWRENCE | The Kansas football season died here on Thursday night, and now the only hope is that the program isn’t dead, too.
Hope is fading by the day.
Turner Gill is the $10 million coach of a five-cent program, six games into his career at Kansas and already owning three of the worst losses in recent Kansas football history.
Unranked Kansas State gutted the Jayhawks 59-7 in front of the best crowd Memorial Stadium will have all year, and as encouraging as this is for the Wildcats, the story here is the epic failure of Kansas football under Gill - the bad hire that serves as Lew Perkins’ parting gift to KU.
The Jayhawks should be on the same level with programs like K-State and Baylor, but instead they lost by a total of 114-14.
Two weeks to prepare for a home game against a rival that could help salvage a season and gain a new coach credibility, and this is what happens?
That starts with the head coach. There are excuses to be made for Gill, and some of them are worth a listen. Kansas went 1-7 in the Big 12 last year with a team that lost the most productive quarterback and pair of wide receivers in school history.
No college coach can be fully or fairly judged until he’s able to coach his own recruits, and Gill is no different.
But reality is impossible to ignore, especially when it’s witnessed by a near-sellout crowd and national TV audience. And the reality is that reasonable people are forced to believe this experiment with the coach who doesn’t allow cursing or women past 10 p.m. will end in the same embarrassing way it’s beginning.
Think about it.
Gill is a motivator, that’s what we’re told. He is supposed to be an inspiration, the kind of leader college football players will fight for.
And his assistants? One of the better staffs in America, we’re told, the kind of coaches who can make the final product better than the raw material.
So, here’s what we’ve seen: a team that’s quit two games in a row during shameful losses to middle-of-the-road programs. The Jayhawks have been terribly prepared, too, crystallized by three mental-error penalties that killed their first two drives of a game against a rival.
Mark Mangino wasn’t liked by many of his players, but his teams always played hard. Just halfway through Gill’s first season, and already that’s not true - a glaring indictment for a coach in need of his players’ love.
It’s one thing to be a bad team with bad players. It’s another to be a bad team with bad players who are coached badly and aren’t playing hard.
Worse: Gill’s ultimate success or failure at KU depends upon recruiting more than any other factor, and how well do you think he’ll be able to recruit now?
The Jayhawks have lost 11 of their last 13 games - many of them on national TV for everyone to see. They lost to a mediocre team from the NCAA’s junior-varsity division in the season opener and now have taken two brutal beatings in a row to what should be comparable peers.
So, in review, Gill is now trying to recruit better players to a losing program that’s not even allowed to have fun.
Good luck.
"I guess you could say that," Gill said when asked whether improving the program will be harder after two embarrassing losses.
K-State’s Carson Coffman is one of the worst starting quarterbacks in major-college football, and KU made him look like a Heisman candidate: 15 completions in 16 throws and five total touchdowns.
Heck, backup Collin Klein made a 51-yard touchdown almost by accident - the Wildcats just wanted to run out the clock.
K-State came into this just like KU: off an embarrassing blowout loss and desperate for something to feel good about. Games like this tell you as much about a team’s head and heart as talent and skill, and the difference between KU and K-State could not have been more obvious.
Kansas State is a good team, nothing more. The Wildcats have better players than the Jayhawks, but the difference in talent isn’t huge.
You can get blown out by Nebraska or Oklahoma, and nobody will think much of it. But to do it against a team headed for the Holiday Bowl is something else entirely.
Kansas football is no longer an afterthought. KU football matters now, and for all his faults, Mangino took the program to unprecedented levels.
Perkins increased resources and attention and brought the facilities even with all but the truly elite. The infrastructure exists for a winner, but how could you believe that will happen with Gill?
The demands of the job are higher than at any point in the last three decades, and it’s remarkable to see how far the program has tumbled in the 33 months and 31 games since the Orange Bowl.
Back then, Kansas looked like the rare school that might maintain success in both football and men’s basketball.
Now, it looks a lot more like the Terry Allen years, right down to the unofficial end of KU football season with Late Night in the Phog tonight.
KU fans are already turning apathetic or angry at their football program, either talking about basketball or wondering when Gill can be fired. He receives far more support from Nebraska fans than Kansas.
It’s too early to talk seriously of firing Gill. But it’s plenty fair to be convinced that his time at Kansas will end in shame and set the program back years.
Any other outcome and Gill will have led a miracle turnaround that even Kansas State and Bill Snyder could appreciate.
To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365, send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com or follow twitter.com/mellinger. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
Posted on Thu, Oct. 14, 2010 11:26 PM
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/14/2316003/blame-for-this-loss-falls-entirely.html#ixzz12RS3QmOV
LAWRENCE | The Kansas football season died here on Thursday night, and now the only hope is that the program isn’t dead, too.
Hope is fading by the day.
Turner Gill is the $10 million coach of a five-cent program, six games into his career at Kansas and already owning three of the worst losses in recent Kansas football history.
Unranked Kansas State gutted the Jayhawks 59-7 in front of the best crowd Memorial Stadium will have all year, and as encouraging as this is for the Wildcats, the story here is the epic failure of Kansas football under Gill - the bad hire that serves as Lew Perkins’ parting gift to KU.
The Jayhawks should be on the same level with programs like K-State and Baylor, but instead they lost by a total of 114-14.
Two weeks to prepare for a home game against a rival that could help salvage a season and gain a new coach credibility, and this is what happens?
That starts with the head coach. There are excuses to be made for Gill, and some of them are worth a listen. Kansas went 1-7 in the Big 12 last year with a team that lost the most productive quarterback and pair of wide receivers in school history.
No college coach can be fully or fairly judged until he’s able to coach his own recruits, and Gill is no different.
But reality is impossible to ignore, especially when it’s witnessed by a near-sellout crowd and national TV audience. And the reality is that reasonable people are forced to believe this experiment with the coach who doesn’t allow cursing or women past 10 p.m. will end in the same embarrassing way it’s beginning.
Think about it.
Gill is a motivator, that’s what we’re told. He is supposed to be an inspiration, the kind of leader college football players will fight for.
And his assistants? One of the better staffs in America, we’re told, the kind of coaches who can make the final product better than the raw material.
So, here’s what we’ve seen: a team that’s quit two games in a row during shameful losses to middle-of-the-road programs. The Jayhawks have been terribly prepared, too, crystallized by three mental-error penalties that killed their first two drives of a game against a rival.
Mark Mangino wasn’t liked by many of his players, but his teams always played hard. Just halfway through Gill’s first season, and already that’s not true - a glaring indictment for a coach in need of his players’ love.
It’s one thing to be a bad team with bad players. It’s another to be a bad team with bad players who are coached badly and aren’t playing hard.
Worse: Gill’s ultimate success or failure at KU depends upon recruiting more than any other factor, and how well do you think he’ll be able to recruit now?
The Jayhawks have lost 11 of their last 13 games - many of them on national TV for everyone to see. They lost to a mediocre team from the NCAA’s junior-varsity division in the season opener and now have taken two brutal beatings in a row to what should be comparable peers.
So, in review, Gill is now trying to recruit better players to a losing program that’s not even allowed to have fun.
Good luck.
"I guess you could say that," Gill said when asked whether improving the program will be harder after two embarrassing losses.
K-State’s Carson Coffman is one of the worst starting quarterbacks in major-college football, and KU made him look like a Heisman candidate: 15 completions in 16 throws and five total touchdowns.
Heck, backup Collin Klein made a 51-yard touchdown almost by accident - the Wildcats just wanted to run out the clock.
K-State came into this just like KU: off an embarrassing blowout loss and desperate for something to feel good about. Games like this tell you as much about a team’s head and heart as talent and skill, and the difference between KU and K-State could not have been more obvious.
Kansas State is a good team, nothing more. The Wildcats have better players than the Jayhawks, but the difference in talent isn’t huge.
You can get blown out by Nebraska or Oklahoma, and nobody will think much of it. But to do it against a team headed for the Holiday Bowl is something else entirely.
Kansas football is no longer an afterthought. KU football matters now, and for all his faults, Mangino took the program to unprecedented levels.
Perkins increased resources and attention and brought the facilities even with all but the truly elite. The infrastructure exists for a winner, but how could you believe that will happen with Gill?
The demands of the job are higher than at any point in the last three decades, and it’s remarkable to see how far the program has tumbled in the 33 months and 31 games since the Orange Bowl.
Back then, Kansas looked like the rare school that might maintain success in both football and men’s basketball.
Now, it looks a lot more like the Terry Allen years, right down to the unofficial end of KU football season with Late Night in the Phog tonight.
KU fans are already turning apathetic or angry at their football program, either talking about basketball or wondering when Gill can be fired. He receives far more support from Nebraska fans than Kansas.
It’s too early to talk seriously of firing Gill. But it’s plenty fair to be convinced that his time at Kansas will end in shame and set the program back years.
Any other outcome and Gill will have led a miracle turnaround that even Kansas State and Bill Snyder could appreciate.
To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365, send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com or follow twitter.com/mellinger. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
Posted on Thu, Oct. 14, 2010 11:26 PM
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/14/2316003/blame-for-this-loss-falls-entirely.html#ixzz12RS3QmOV