Report: Irish TE to transfer to Kansas

Thanks to a report from the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune, we now know the identity of at least one of the transfers that Kansas University football coach Charlie Weis talked about back on signing day in February.

Former Notre Dame tight end Mike Ragone on Thursday was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA. He’ll use it to rejoin his old coach at Kansas.

Ragone, 6-foot-4, 250 pounds, was regarded as the top tight end in the 2007 recruiting class. He joins former Notre Dame quarterback Dayne Crist in reuniting with Weis at KU. Like Crist, Ragone will be eligible to play immediately because he will have graduated from Notre Dame by the time he joins the Jayhawks.

“I’m pretty excited right now,” Ragone told the paper. “It’s going to be great playing with Dayne again. He’s a great guy and a great quarterback. I asked for one more chance, and I got it.”

The report also indicated that Notre Dame linebacker Anthony McDonald soon could follow the two former Golden Domers to Lawrence, but that move is not yet official.

In other transfer news, JayhawkSlant.com is reporting former Nebraska defensive end Josh Williams, a former starter for the Cornhuskers, also will join the Jayhawks in 2012.

There has been no official word from KU on any of the three potential transfers.

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nwhawk 1 year, 3 months ago

Another wounded warrior . . . Hope these guys can finish their careers with on a high note.

bskeet 1 year, 3 months ago

This sounds exciting!

When was the last time we got a transfer from Nebraska - a former starter?

This news may get lost with all the annual basketball festivities, but this seems very encouraging.

dagger108 1 year, 3 months ago

"Ragone, 6-foot-4, 250 pounds, was regarded as the top tight end in the 2007 recruiting class."

Have we EVER had a top rated player at any position, much less one with D1 experience. I'm more than willing to accept these "One & Dones".

KU79 1 year, 3 months ago

Status of Josh Williams? Sit out a year? He must have some mojo if he started for the Nubs.

dagger108 1 year, 3 months ago

Another graduate, so he doesn't have to sit - just start grad school in a non-NU grad program.

HouTexHawk 1 year, 3 months ago

It is hard to get excited about a player coming for just one year. Clearly Coach Weis wants to make an impact this year and I respect him for that. it will take some time to see what type of players he can bring in to KU.

I will know we are making progress when we get players who were considering schools like Baylor and MU and KSU and Texas Tech as opposed to Tulsa and Colorado State and Northern Illinois.

ejlumus 1 year, 3 months ago

It is very easy to get excited these are 22 - 24 year olds that know how to play.

KY has been succesful with one & dones. in MBB. Possibly we can be moderately successful (5 -7 wins) this year in FB filling gaps with one & dones. Better than Jucos even with 1 less year.

texashawk10 1 year, 3 months ago

These transfers are coming in at positions where KU had/have major deficiencies and can give some the freshman Gill brought in that stayed an extra year in the weight room to develop physically and an extra year of practice to learn Weis and Campo's schemes. It's a smart move that will pay dividends downthe the road for Weis and KU.

kureader 1 year, 3 months ago

You must be kidding. You'd rather wait two or three years to get results from quality recruits?

troutsee 1 year, 3 months ago

Fan impatience demands immediate success. With immediate success will come better recruits and with that better teams. Weis seems to be pulling all the right strings.

chalky 1 year, 3 months ago

Your right on.Wies is creatively smoothing out the rocky road that following a rotten year/roster/team/staff/add your own word here/ usually demands.

Lash 1 year, 3 months ago

So HouTexHawk do we want to ask Dayne to leave?

HouTexHawk 1 year, 3 months ago

I did not say that and time will tell if he is any good. He will be better than anyone KU has, but he is only here for one year. These are stop gap measures.

LTCUSARet 1 year, 3 months ago

Cardinal rule of triage -- first, stop the bleeding.

That's what Weis is doing.

Carry on, Charlie!

hawken 1 year, 3 months ago

If he can get a few wins next year and turn this into a respectable program, it will do wonders for recruiting. Bill Snyder's first year, he grey shirted a lot of players, including upper classmen, so he could have a good year and change recruits minds about the program. I love it, especially these fifth year players with a lot of experience and winning attitudes

hawken 1 year, 3 months ago

Josh Williams is a graduate and eligible to play right away. He was dismissed from the team by Pelini for an unspecified team rules violation. He played in all 13 games last year and started 2.

kustrong 1 year, 3 months ago

This is a great article from the Sporting News about HCCW. http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-03-13/kansas-charlie-weis-jayhawks-Notre-Dame-Florida-Crist

Rock Chalk

Phoggin_Loud 1 year, 3 months ago

Thanks for sharing, kustrong!

"What does he envision as his greatest successes at KU? Weis views the answer both short-term and long-term.

“Somewhere this year,” he said, “you want to have a full house and have a team from the conference that everyone thinks is decent in here, and you want to beat them so all these people that live and die crimson and blue can celebrate together.

“Two is going on the road somewhere where everyone thought you had no chance, and their fans heading for the rafters before the game is over, and those couple thousand Kansas fans that got tickets scattered throughout the stadium all end up behind your bench waving towels. I want this program to experience that this year.”

bullpuphawk 1 year, 3 months ago

I'll take these two games

1st goal = Oct 27 Texas

2nd goal = Oct 6 KSU

Totally into the basketball team right now, but, can't wait for football. Have my tickets ordered and am planning on going to the spring game.

rxdoc1973 1 year, 3 months ago

Good stuff! Thanks for the article! I'm a Weis fan and can't wait for the fall. I wanted to come to the spring game but I gotta work so maybe next year. Unless someone trades the day with me. If I can work that out I will be there!

Rock Chalk!

actorman 1 year, 3 months ago

Thanks kustrong. I didn't feel great about Weis when KU hired him, but I'm feeling better about him all the time, and this article certainly helps.

ralster 1 year, 3 months ago

actorman, I respect your sentiment, although I do not know your personal reasons for not being excited about the Weis hire initially. My own logic for excitement was this: Gill proved to us painfully that he was not an effective coach, nor an effective staff-builder (except for a couple of retained guys), and had no success to warrant a hire in a BCS conference, nor anything to justify the amount of his salary.

Weis has coached at every level. I personally did like his play calling a hella lot better than Todd Haley's. He has built a very good asst. coaching staff. We also know you cannot, just cannot get top recruits to look at us unless the coaching staff can offer something, including name recognition and NFL-connections. Weis can "sell" all of that. Proven track record on the offensive side of the ball going back to his days with Tom Brady. He does have ultimate cred with that Super Bowl ring with the Patriots. Perhaps the only better teacher/coach to hire would have been Bill Cowher, or one of the big-name college coaches, none of whom (as you know) were available for KU to make an offer to. If Zenger bought Weis, you can bet he would have offerred any top guy available.

And I'm truly sorry if you are a Gill-lover, but way to many high$$$ alums/donors made their voices clear on Turner Gill ("god love him")...I personally am utterly disgusted by the entire Turner Gill episode. It truly has cast a huge cloud on Lew Perkins, who I did like until Turner Gill totally exposed his incompetence to any who doubted it while he was at Buffalo. Turner Gill's claim to football fame is that he was Nebraska's QB over 30yrs ago. A lazy one I heard--nothing changed, eh?

CaliHawk33 1 year, 3 months ago

Uhhhhh ya mean 4 rings???

Jayhawker111 1 year, 3 months ago

The depth will not hurt but it will be tough for this transfer to beat out Jimmay Mundine.

Height / Weight: 6-2 / 240

Mundine is a player.

ejlumus 1 year, 3 months ago

Why can't you play 2 TEs or 3 like Stanford and ram the ball down their throats?

baldjedi 1 year, 3 months ago

With the depth of our TE's it should be noted the pro style offense uses 2 tight end sets a lot. Basically, Weis wants to win this year and if he does then higher level players may take notice and start to consider us. We have a very aggressive coach and I like it since he is obviously selling KU well.

dagger108 1 year, 3 months ago

We keep hearing rumors about this, but has there been much of any sighting of Mundine in an actual game? Maybe between CW developing TE's, and having a top-rated TE to tutor him will be enough to get Mundine to actually produce on Sats.

inteldesign 1 year, 3 months ago

I have to admit I am impressed with a number of things about HCCW and the way he is getting extra talent is very big. Any fifth-year player is going to be stronger, more mature and will see the field and contribute. Not only that, but these guys will bring in a chemistry to the team that is more polished, more competitive, more experienced. They already have their degree so the academics is less pressured.

Then the way he and staff are focusing on the KC area in particular and home turf in general is critical. Win KC. Win Wichita.

And he is not talking "dynasty" or "national championships". That was embarrassing. Not over-promising is a good first step to credibility. I like what he said about winning a couple of games no one expects you to, home and on the road. Who would have thought the Clones would be the spoiler last year? That was a great win for them. It has been a while since we took it to OU. Would really like to see that as one of those wins.

DevilHawk 1 year, 3 months ago

We're in the midst of March Madness and here's an article on football recruiting.

Thanks, Matt.

As for the news: Nice. We'll see how this works out.

Hail_To_Thee 1 year, 3 months ago

Hope all these transfers can "GEL" with all the current players. If so, this could be an exciting year.

ralster 1 year, 3 months ago

From everything I read, the Gill-loyalist players departed or quit football altogether. The ones that stayed are clearly stoked about getting coached by an actual dynamic football mind. Many have voiced similar sentiments.

Plus, getting players to "gel" is also partially/mostly up to the coaching staff to get all to "buy in". Even Self had a tough time trying to get Simien, Miles, Langford to buy into Selfball, recall...

dagger108 1 year, 3 months ago

Unfortunately, CW is not following the winningest (%) active coach. It should be a LOT easier to get the attention of the current FB players.

dagger108 1 year, 3 months ago

Here's some info from some articles (SBTrib?) that I posted a while ago on RCT about possible 5th yr transfers from ND.

Anthony McDonald (LB), By Matt Fortuna Before Notre Dame: From Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., McDonald entered Notre Dame as ESPNU's No. 27 outside linebacker. He was selected to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio. At Notre Dame: The 6-foot-2, 238-pound McDonald has played in 27 games the past three seasons, recording 24 tackles. He suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament his freshman year, a concussion his sophomore year, another knee injury his junior year and a torn pectoral muscle this past spring. He saw extended action in last season's Sun Bowl in place of the injured Manti Te'o. What's next?: A sociology major, McDonald will prepare for the Irish's bowl game as a reserve inside linebacker, though he is not on the two-deep at either spot.

The verdict: Going. If it sounds like we have said this before, it's because we have. But McDonald is another case of a talented high school player who ran into a rash of injuries at the next level, hindering him from making a lot of progress.

yates33333 1 year, 3 months ago

If Notre Dame's top 22 would just come over in mass we could have a real good season. Let's see, KU is the Harvard on the Kaw, but soon to be the Notre Dame on the Mississippi (street). It has been so damn long I can't remember whether it is Mississippi or Louisiana street. I know it's not Ohio because that is where I lived with some 90 year old couple who exercised every day. He did the "daily dozen," according to him.

Crusty 1 year, 3 months ago

AWESOME BABY !!!

gardenjay 1 year, 3 months ago

wow. I was so jazzed with basketball I nearly missed this article. I am so impressed with the work ethic or incredible good luck of HCCW. Holy smoke.

machinegun 1 year, 2 months ago

Jordan Darling, 6-4 225 Pro-Style QB, just enrolled at Shawnee Mission East. He will be playing for Coach Chip Sherman next year as a senior. His Army Mom is currently serving our country in Afghanistan. I would love to see "The Kansas City Kid" in a KU uniform. More to follow.

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