Don’t give up just yet

Kansas1241 8 months, 2 weeks ago

It's TCU's first Big 12 game. I think they'll want to make a very definitive statement in their opener. If KU keeps it within 30 it should be considered a moral victory...isn't that what Turner Gill taught us for the past two years? Just go out and try your best and everybody will be happy! Ha what a joke...

99yard_run 8 months, 2 weeks ago

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Kansas1241 8 months, 2 weeks ago

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ahpersecoachingexperience 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Multiple perrsonalities much?

Jhaux 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I hate myself when I agree with you. But dang, I thought the same exact thing.

Bangkok_Jayhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I agree with Keegan here. You can be excited to see the progress of this team while still realizing that the loss to Rice was huge. SDST, Rice, and Nothern Illinois needed to be victories because we should be underdogs in all of our Big 12 games. Winning those 3 and stealing a couple would have REALLY been a step in the right direction. Sucks to say, but winning 3 games and showing signs of real progress would be a step in the right direction at this point. I'm rooting my tail off for good things this year, but Rice needed to be a victory.

ohjayhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Bangkok_Jayhawk - I'm assuming that ahperse's comment was to the fact that Keegan's column yesterday was pretty much an all doom and gloom, the boat's taking on water, everybody grab a bucket, type article. While, on the other hand, today he's saying don't give up hope just yet.

Cmill1221 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Idk what is worse, Royals baseball or Kansas football. I just want to see improvement. Give me a reason to watch.

nuleafjhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Last time I looked, the Royals were in third place in their division. I'd be MORE than happy with that if KU were in the same position.

Kubie 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Chiefs got them both beat.

LAJayhawk 8 months, 1 week ago

I'm a Cubs fan. Feel better?

milehighhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

With forced references to The Exorcist, Kevin Costner and William Shatner, Keegs should give up.

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Someone get Keegan an Entertainment Weekly subscription so that if he insists on forcing pop culture references into every single column he can at least come up with some that aren't nearly 40 years old.

Table_Rock_Jayhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

The Chiefs suck...KU sucks...the Royals suck.

Pretty much par for the course...but at least we have basketball.

And at least we got to watch Mizzou lose...and watch their spread offense not work in the SEC.

Hawk90 8 months, 2 weeks ago

No

dfybaby21 8 months, 2 weeks ago

On the other hand, I would say to absolutely give up. I'm new to this area, but is this Keegan always such a fanboy? This was very hard to read and take seriously. Rah Rah, go team. Is this a paid writer for a newspaper, or just some fan blog?

KansasRedLegger 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Never understand KU's fanbase. Lawrence is a 35 minute drive from Johnson County, where we have tens of thousands of alumni; if you come from the Missouri side, add another ten or fifteen minutes onto the drive and tens of thousands more alumni. We should be selling out every game, even with an inferior product on the field. Lawrence in the fall is beautiful, and it's only six or seven Saturdays a year. Even if the team sucks (which they do), why not go to Lawrence and enjoy the day, reconnect with old friends or make new friends, get free or deeply discounted tickets, and head on into Memorial to enjoy the day, even if KU loses?

Never understood KU fans apathy toward football. I know the team has usually been mediocre to bad, but is the experience of tailgating for a BCS football game really that repugnant to a large portion of our alumni and fanbase? I look forward to football tailgates in Lawrence all year, regardless of whether the team stinks, and I wish more of our fans would, as well.

milwaukeeJAYHAWK 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Agreed. If we just gave more of a damn, there would be more money coming into the program and more fan pressure for a successful team.

What else is there to do around here anyways? It's not like we have beaches, mountains, etc....might as well take in a handful of home games a year.

runningbeakers84 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Ten hour commute for me, but we make a game of two a year. Still enjoy coming to Lawrence in the fall.

Phoghorn 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Driving through Lawrence is a pain with all the bad drivers. That is why you should just drive down the sidewalk - you will get around so much faster.

oldalum 8 months, 2 weeks ago

If you have such distaste for Lawrence, why are you here? You seem to atually be fascinated.

LAJayhawk 8 months, 1 week ago

Yeah, Lawrence traffic is just soooo bad... [as I watch a man eat Chinese food with chopsticks, while steering with his knee as he drives down the 405 at 15 MPH].....

Noweigh 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I'll state the obvious. Mangino should never have been fired. Winning 3 of 4 bowl games in four years...we long for those days. It turned the KU football clock back five years, at least. That being said, we do need to give Charlie a chance and demand effort and intensity, even with lesser talent. I hate this "start over" strategy KU has had forever but I'm not throwing in the towel quite yet.

Ross 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Did you forget that he lost his last 7 games? He and his team kinda threw in the towel. He had a short burst of recruiting success that led to a brief period of excitement. He then left the cupboard bare. Don't let emotion cloud your judgement. The year we went 12-1 we didn't play that many good teams. OU, UT, and TT were all off the schedule, KSU was suffering through the failed Ron Prince experiment, and Nebraska was simply not Nebraska.

cwoodling 8 months, 2 weeks ago

You are dead-on, sir. You know your Kansas football.

IlBastardo 8 months, 2 weeks ago

So, somewhere in the dark recesses of Jayhawk nation the crackpot "cupboard was bare", "weak schedule" hypothesis is still being dragged about like a tattered security blanket. Say, for the sake of argument, we played OU, UT, and TT, and lost all of those games. That puts us at 9-4. Would you turn your nose up at that record for any coach besides Mangino? Would any team in recent memory before or since have accomplished that with the same "weak" schedule?

And how do we account for the anomalous results of his final season? What was unique about that year? Reason might suggest to me it was Lew Perkin's systematic and public undermining of Mangino's authority which essentially castrated his coaching and recruiting capacity, but then, it really is so much more comforting to think he just petered out, threw in the towel, "lost the team", another victim of the sporting ennui which has cost many a career.

I thought we buried the propaganda along with the Godfather.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

"So, somewhere in the dark recesses of Jayhawk nation the crackpot "cupboard was bare", "weak schedule" hypothesis is still being dragged about like a tattered security blanket."

It's no more "crackpot" than the people who keep suggesting that Mangino and his ONE year of marked success was the answer for KU's long-term hopes of football success at KU.

For one thing, it's objective fact that KU's schedule was not as strong as it could have been and that we were lucky not to play any of those teams. And while I would tend to agree with the logic that 9-4 and a bowl game is still GREAT by KU standards, there's a small problem with that reasoning:

When a BCS championship is the apex against which the less successful parts of your coaching career at KU is measured, it's very different than when a mid-range bowl is that apex. It's less of a trump card to use against criticism of his struggles. Furthermore, it's a mistake to presume that you can just switch out opponents and trade wins for losses like that, because you never know how one of those losses mid-season may have affected the rest of the games. Maybe we play TTU early on, lose, and that kills the momentum and leads us to lose a game that we ultimately won in 2007, like OSU (which was almost a loss anyway).

You can't underestimate the power of not losing a game until the final week of the season as it relates to sustaining future wins.

I do agree that Perkins' complete undermining of Mangino (I mean, what kind of AD meets with the team sans their head coach!?!?) may have affected the final season, but it's not like that final season was the only indictment on his career. The season between Orange Bowl and his final season was a disappointment too, based on the talent we had returning--the f***king Insight Bowl?!? And blaming his recruiting struggles on Perkins is silly, given that it was clear the talent had slipped BEFORE Turner Gill's first year. Was Perkins undermining Mangino during the 2008-09 season too?

My opinion on Mangino? A decent motivator whose success was almost lockstep with the presence of a gifted playmaker in Todd Reesing. It's too bad we'll never know how much of that success was Reesing and how much was Mangino's coaching, but the facts are the facts.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Winning as many games as you lose is a pretty low standard for "good year", if you ask me.

Plus, I get a kick out of the people citing bowl eligibility, as if the year we got to 6-6 but couldn't get an invite is something to be satisfied with. Everyone wants to use the fact that he got us eligible for 5 season and ignore the specifics of those seasons. We were in position to finish with more than 6 wins that season and probably should have, but again Mangino is framed with overly-positive hindsight because of KU's previous failures in football.

And I believe it's already been noted that Glen Mason "came close" to that, getting KU "bowl eligible" (and when he coached at Kansas, that meant he had a WINNING record, not just a .500 record) in 4 of his 9 years, but only getting 2 bowl invites because there were five million bowls.

This "he's easily the best football coach KU has ever had" crap is ridiculous.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 1 week ago

Glen Mason didn't play in the Big 12 but for one year (1996) and he won one game against the Big 12 South. Against an Oklahoma team that won 3 games that year. His only other conference win was against Iowa State in a 4-7 overall season. Do you still want to act like he was anything close to Coach Mangino? Maybe you just want to keep digging and digging hoping that you will find something that will sound halfway convincing to a normal person.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Mangino's last recruiting class, the bare-cupboard crew, happened to be ranked 4th in the Big 12, by the way.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

You have a source for this?

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

RIVALS 2009 CLASS RANKINGS. If you can't find that, you really can't be helped.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

No need to be an ass about it. Just a simple question.

And regardless of the answer, I'm not convinced that his halfway decent post-Orange Bowl recruiting means that he was the answer at Kansas long-term.

Then again, I'm not one who says Mangino left the cupboard bare. My issues with him come from his gameday execution and his demeanor/attitude. He has a solid number of games at KU to demonstrate his in-game shortcomings, and I'm not about to suggest that a coach needs to be a timid, values-first patsy like Gill, but I think there is a happy medium between being tame and between the kind of mean-spirited bullying approach that Mangino seemed to take. I know Bear Bryant was a great coach, but he was also an a**hole. I'd love for KU to be a halfway competitive football school, but not at any cost. And again, even if I was going to be convinced to live with a coach's terrible demeanor, I would at least expect more than Mangino was able to provide Kansas.

dagger108 8 months, 2 weeks ago

but do a post-analysis on that class. There was as much left as there is currently from TG's decent class last year. MM had some good recruiting, but most weren't around or amounted to anything close to their ranking.

741hawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Do you know WHY we lost the last seven games under Mangino? Perkins held a players-only meeting before the Colorado game and undercut all the authority MM had as head coach. It was part of Perkins plan to disrupt the program, create distractions and make MM's firing more palatable to fans like you. He succeeded.

inteldesign 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I have always thought the same thing...that Perkins players only meeting totally undermined Mangino. I also think that there were some players who undermined him. Was it the ticket scandal breathing down his neck and Perkins wanted a distraction? Was he simply mishandling this? Whatever his motives, his handling of the investigation was poor, his handling of Mangino was poor, his hiring of Gill disastrous. In the anals of KU sports his overall grade as an AD has to be about an F-. Lew Perkins was an absolute disaster for KU.

dagger108 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I thought the players-only meeting was midway through the losing streak. What definitely was midway through the losing streak was the public tiff from his QB/Captain that he refused to talk about his benching. I don't think Lew had anything to do with that. Pretty sure that Lew didn't have anything to do with the other examples of discord on the team, athletic administration, and some university staff. Pretty sure that Lew didn't make MM say in the OB victory celebration that we have mediocre players that are lucky to be surrounded with such a phenomenal coaching staff, or that Lew threw the wet towel over the players. But that went right along with MM not letting the players celebrate with him in the customary gatorade shower at the end of the game. Lew may have handled the dismissal like he was running for office (twisting facts for convenience), but it wasn't like he had to create controversy. MM had handled that part just fine.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

The meeting was midway through the losing streak. They were 1-5 in Big 12 play when it occurred. Of course, the investigation started before that, which the Mangino apologists would tell you is the real reason they started struggling, but that's a different issue. It's one thing to say an all-team meeting without the head coach undermines the team chemistry. It's quite another to suggest that an investigation going on in the background does that.

And you've touched on something that I think the Manginophiles want to ignore: Perkins may have been out of line in his handling of the situation, but if there hadn't been ammo to use, then he wouldn't have even been able to mishandle it, because he wouldn't have had the rationale he needed to oust the guy. It's one of those situations where a guy may have been treated unfairly, but that guy still has to bear some of that blame for putting himself in a position where he could be treated unfairly. It's not like Mangino was a completely innocent victim here. Whether or not one believes that the things he was accused of are appropriate grounds for dismissal as a football coach is only part of the issue.

Kirk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Word. I stated the obvious again and again WHILE it was happening, while Perkins had declared open season against Mangino, completely screwing KU's football program into the ground.

We aren't going to win 5 or 6 games again a single season in many years. Let alone 12 games.

Weis is better than Gill. But like Gill, there's NO evidence in his resume to indicate that he has "the stuff" to be a successful head coach in the Big 12, where frankly KU will be removed at some point.

oldalum 8 months, 2 weeks ago

You're saying KU will be removed from the Big12? Please explain.

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I can't believe people are still longing for Mangino. Let's review: three winning seasons in eight years, 23-41 in conference play, 4-20 against the Big 12 South (and two of those wins were against bad Baylor teams), lost 11 of his last 16 conference games. Mangino got KU to the Orange Bowl during a year that he had the weakest possible Big 12 South opponents on the schedule, and KSU and Nebraska were fielding some of their worst teams in recent memory. He then failed to capitalize on that season in recruiting, and the program was in decline BEFORE he got fired. It didn't help that he was so difficult to work with that many of his good assistants didn't stick around very long, which doesn't help recruiting. Has anyone noticed that he is still unemployed? No one has even picked him up as a coordinator or assistant. Does anyone remember that in addition to his horrible behavior he also was penalized for academic fraud and got KU accused of lack of institutional control by the NCAA? Firing Mangino was the right move. It's unfortunate that Perkins chose Gill, and it's going to take time to clean up the mess.

IlBastardo 8 months, 2 weeks ago

How long do you think it will take before Charlie Weis will have even a chance at a winning season at KU? Do you think that might taint his overall win-loss record, particularly if he is thrown out just as the program stabilizes and just as he has a chance to recoup some of those rebuilding losses? Can you see why that statistic may not be the most telling given the state of our program then and now? Weak schedule: see my earlier reply to poor Ross who is under the same delusion. Weak recruiting: see the statistic MartyrMangino just kindly pointed out. Program was in decline: see 741's above description of Mangino's final season. You can obviously access wikipedia to pull those academic fraud allegations verbatim. While you're there, have a look at the award section on the sidebar. No one ever argued he was a saint, but you're crazy to attack his prowess as a football coach. Where I come from, people say thank you, rather than bite the hand that virtually reinvented KU football.

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I dealt with Mangino every day for more than two years. I don't need Wikipedia to tell me I don't want someone like him representing my alma mater no matter how many games he won. For the record, he had a winning record in conference play ONCE in eight seasons. Are you going to blame that on Perkins, too?

IlBastardo 8 months, 2 weeks ago

If you don't place as high a premium on on-field success, then I'll allow you to judge Mangino's character how you will. But if you're going to do that, don't over-reach and try to back up your position by making light of his results. You put so much emphasis on this winning-record business, as if it was the benchmark for every football team to measure a successful season. I want to know what standard you are holding Mangino to. Is there some past KU ideal you are comparing him to, or are you trying to measure success for KU football on the scale of a program like OU or UT? The Big 12 is a pretty decent football conference and there are only so many teams who can finish with the sought-after "winning record". Many of those schools have a major leg up on us in tradition, and resources. We can't measure ourselves by those standards or we'll continue to fire coaches left and right until the end of time. There's national power good, and there's KU football good, and please don't try to insult anyone's intelligence by claiming Mangino was not KU football good.

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

No, I have watched KU football for too many years to expect to have an Orange Bowl -- or any bowl -- on a regular basis. My point is that I'm surprised by how many people still hold Mangino in such high regard despite the fact that he had serious character flaws and was NOT "national power good." That kind of blind following typically is reserved for coaches whose teams did produce rankings, bowls, etc. year after year. Mangino, honestly, was no better than Glen Mason (four winning seasons in eight years at KU), but some KU fans act like life would be so much better if Mangino was still here. The truth is that his act had grown tired, the program was in decline, his best assistants were jumping ship and he was going to go back to losing to K-State on a regular basis with Bill Snyder back in the game. Again, have you noticed that he's still unemployed?

IlBastardo 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Ahh 93. Luca Brasi to our Godfather. The stuttering, dull, unquestioning follower of the Don's commands. Surely even you can see that there are factors beyond his performance (and beyond enjoying a lucrative severance package in a tropical setting) why Mangino is still unemployed. If you can't accept the smear campaign, then you will be stuck forever here. You are downright foolish to presume that results (again, I direct you to the award section of your beloved Wikipedia page) have anything to do with Mangino's job situation. As if people look at him as a potential candidate and say "Wait. Remember? he's lost his passion for the game. His act has grown tired." No. It is clearly factors beyond the field of play that make him a toxic prospect, which is where I've been trying to keep this discussion since I gave you free rein to attack his character.

Furthermore, are we supposed to wait to hold a coach in high regard until we get one who is "national power good"? No wonder our fan support is as pathetic as it is. What more can we, KU I remind you, supposedly your alma mater, do than take on a coach who was an assistant at KSU when they were at their best, #1 nationally in '98, and at OU in 2000 when they won the national title, something they haven't since repeated?

I guess your friends have tacitly agreed to this "program was in decline" point since the end of Mangino's tenure, because you bring it up with the persistence of an automaton regardless of what I say.

Kugrad you have the AP, statistics, and the majority of fans telling you Mangino was one of the best coaches our program has ever had. I'm SURE you were staunchly putting this forth for Mangino's whole tenure and it was of your own invention, but it's time to let go. Whatever cafe you were working at, where you served him everyday, and he emasculated you, it's ok. He's gone now. Don't blow it out of proportion making wild allegations.

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Ha. Nice try. I dealt with Mangino on a regular basis on campus. I also dealt with the people who he forced out of jobs, saw the grown adults that he made cry over petty, insignificant details, talked to the assistant he treated so badly that he quit two games into a season, heard the screaming he directed at people (not just players) who working their butts off to help him succeed. And yes, he directed some of that venom at me, calling me on the phone to say, "you're not a good person." Well, that was certainly true of one of us. So if you want to win at all costs, bring him back. Just don't expect me to root for him.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

By the way, if you knew Mangino well enough to have a forwarding address on him, that would be appreciated.

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

He's on Twitter. http://twitter.com/KeepSawinWood

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

"Mangino should never have been fired".

Honestly, I don't think it's that obvious. Unless you tack on "...the way he was fired" to the end of that sentence. Mangino was not the answer long-term for KU football. Admittedly, he had a wonderful year with the Orange Bowl team, but outside of that year, which certainly benefited from 1) a favorable schedule, 2) the Orange Bowl committee's willingness to overlook a higher-ranked team that had beat KU head-to-head, and 3) getting to play the ACC champion instead of a school that would have run us out of the BCS bowls, Mangino's resume was far from impressive.

As great as the 2007-08 season was, the 2008-09 season was an incredible disappointment, losing 7 straight Big 12 games, including at least 3 that we should have won but didn't due to incompetent in-game management. I will never forget that year's Missouri game, in which KU had the lead with a few minutes left, but proceeded to throw the ball on three straight snaps, shaving all of 20 seconds off the clock in a situation where we needed to prevent Missouri from getting the ball back. At the very least, run on that first play and eat a good 30 seconds off the clock on that one play. Then if you have to throw on 2nd and 3rd to try and get the first down, so be it.

The thing that set KU football back 5 years wasn't Mangino's firing. We could have ousted him and found a replacement that could have kept the ball rolling with only a minor drop off. The thing that set us back 5 years was hiring a guy who had never given any evidence that he could win at the top level (Big 12) of the BCS, and only marginal evidence that he could win in a non-BCS conference, and hiring him with a contract that was completely unearned.

You want to hire an "up and comer" (being extremely generous to Gill here), then pay him like an up and comer, not an established football coach.

Mangino was nothing more than a halfway decent football mind who happened to find a bit of serendipity in part of his time at KU.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

It takes a brazen person to attack the best football coach KU has ever had. Coach Mangino poured his heart into our program after having national success at Kansas State and Oklahoma, creates expectations for our football team, and after he gives you what nobody thought was possible, you say "He was nothing more than a halfway decent football mind who happened to find a bit of serendipity in part of his time at KU". I would hate to be you. I bet you have no recollection of what Lawrence used to be like on Autumn Saturdays. Coach Mangino is why we have the facilities we do, the attendance we do, and THE EXPECTATIONS THAT YOU HAVE! Let's bring up another losing KU coach. Dr. James Naismith. Do you want to tell me that he was a halfway decent mind because he couldn't win the majority of the contests in the game he created? Mark Mangino for all intents and purposes reinvented KU football and all you can see is that relative to his best season to date he didn't win as many games as you expected. I know damn well that you were there riding on the bandwagon, and I also know that people want a reason to make it palatable that we railroaded the best coach we ever had. Just face up to it that Coach Mangino made YOU care about football again and he has been invaluable to our football program. I'll reiterate my point once more, it is unfair to hold Coach Mangino to the standards that he himself raised the bar to, when no coach at KU has ever come close to those aforementioned standards. Did you say this stuff about Bill Self after two first round losses? Do you say it now about him now that he hasn't won a national title in 4 years? You would never say any of this to Coach Mangino's face. Real cool internet tough guy..

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Attack? Good grief, calm down. It's nothing personal--I just don't think he's the answer for Kansas' football coach and representative of the program.

I guess I'm not one of those people who thought moderate success at Kansas is something "nobody thought was possible". Nor do I think he deserves all the credit for the increase in football support and resources, although he certainly helped. Bitter pill though it is, Lew Perkins had a lot to do with that too, even though the negatives of his time at AD far outweighed the positives.

Plus, I think the Orange Bowl (BCS) win in the middle of Mangino's career carries a false weight due to the sham of a bowl system and the way the media hypes it up. It sounds more impressive than it really is (just like all of the BCS bowls), at least in terms of a method of evaluating a team/coach's future prospects. If we're being honest and objective, Kansas got a fortunate turn in the schedule, a favor from the Orange Bowl selection committee, a good matchup in the OB itself, and admittedly, they took care of business. I'm not criticizing the team for it's excellent accomplishments, I'm merely viewing those accomplishments through the lens of attempting to evaluate Mangino's fitness to be the long-term coach of the Jayhawks. There is too much "outlier" potential for that 2007-08 season for me.

As far as the rest of your emotional tirade, just stop. Citing James Naismith? What a failed analogy on so many levels. For starters, the only thing those two men shared in common was that they were both coaches who have losing records. The analogy literally ends there. They coach different sports, with different logistics of success, a century apart, in vastly different surrounding environments. Hell, if you look at their relationship to their respective sports, they aren't even similar. Naismith wasn't some champion of the organized sport of basketball (which is effectively the role Mangino played at KU), he was a guy who needed an off-season way to keep up his athletes condition during the cold months, and invented a sport for this purpose.

Regardless of the ways in which the analogy fails, James Naismith wasn't a good coach. He proves the point that playing a valuable role at an institution or to a sport isn't necessarily the same thing as being the best person to coach that sport at that institution. The "answer" for KU's basketball program, as it turns out, was the guy who came AFTER Naismith (who incidentally thought the idea of coaching basketball was absurd) was the answer at coach. I already said this, but I'm not defending the way in which he was ousted, merely pointing out that the decision to go in a different direction at coach was ultimately the right one.

(to be continued)

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

(continued)

Moving onto your second most ridiculous analogy, it's insulting to compare the resumes of Mangino and Self at KU. I wasn't happy about the two first-round losses, but...

1) It was only Self's 2nd/3rd years, compared to Mangino being in his 8th.

2) Self already had an Elite Eight and a Big 12 conference title by the time the first loss happened, which are both more than anything Mangino came close to outside of the Orange Bowl win.

3) Self had added a Big 12 tourney championship and another Big 12 conference title by the time the second loss happened.

4) If I gave such a disproportionate weight to TWO losses out of Self's 36-11 record over the first 3 years, I would be guilty of the same thing I think Mangino's defenders are doing when the overvalue the Orange Bowl win.

I won't deign to reply to the hilarious garbage about hating to be me or how I'm a bandwagon fan. You don't know a damn thing about me, so we'll just leave it at that. I did, however, get a kick out watching you get all agitated, then calling me Mr. Internet Tough Guy. Pretty ironic. Good to know that you have to be willing to express an opinion direct to a person's face to be qualified to share it on the internet.

IlBastardo 8 months, 2 weeks ago

March,

You've already been exposed for revisionist history down below the same as you are accusing others of, which I find to be some hilarious garbage of your own.

Regardless, say moderate success is no big deal at KU, say the bowls are a sham, the point is it's all relative to our history. Whether the bowls are less impressive than they seem, they are still more or less an indicator of the success of a team from season to season. Whether you call Mangino's success moderate or superb, it's fairly unparalleled in the history of our program, which I find a better benchmark than whatever adjective a given person chooses to use. Your point is well-established that you believe the guy who followed Mangino was the biggest problem and that we "could've found an effective replacement." Well, sure we "could've." In theory, we "could've" discovered a coach to take us to the national championship. The point is coaches like Mangino don't come around for our program every day, so while we "could" find one, the chances that he would want to be here are slim.

Comparing Mangino to Self, I think you fail to account for the different capacities of the two programs upon their respective adoptions by Self and Mangino. Of course it would take Mangino longer than Self to get the football program going, and in addition, our position in Big 12 basketball is more analgous to Texas or OU in Big 12 football, so of course the league titles are going to come more quickly in basketball.

I've been preaching relativity from the start here, and I don't think anyone can argue that relatively, Mangino was one of the best coaches this perennially mediocre program has had. I don't think you've begun to prove why the decision to go in a different direction at coach was the right one. I don't think you are any more careful about your allegations than anyone else.

IlBastardo 8 months, 2 weeks ago

You've had the recruiting numbers pushed back at you, and you've been called on giving a bogus account of Mangino's final season. Abandon your moral high ground.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

"You've already been exposed for revisionist history"

No. Describing it this way implies that I intentionally lied to support my point. In truth, I got the two years after the Orange Bowl mixed together in mind mind when writing the comment, and when someone pointed that out, I admitted that I had gotten them confused. I then proceeded to explain how the underlying point wasn't dependent upon the 7-game losing streak happening the year after the Orange Bowl season.

===========

"Whether you call Mangino's success moderate or superb, it's fairly unparalleled in the history of our program, which I find a better benchmark than whatever adjective a given person chooses to use."

But describing it as unparalleled only goes so far. We can both agree that his accomplishments are unparalleled, because we can both look at X and agree whether it had or had not happened in KU's past history. But the problem is that your standard presumes that whether or not one of Mangino's accomplishments is unparalleled or not is a function of him or the context in which he was competing. For example, no other KU coach prior to Mangino had the ease of access to bowl games that he has had, due to the explosion in number of games as well as a relaxing of the standards to get into the bowl game. That's just one example, but it pretty clearly illustrates that there are more factors than Mangino The Football Coach at play in achieving that label.

Ultimately, we would still have to decide on the line between "moderate" and "superb" if any meaningful decision about his fitness to remain at KU were to have occurred.

I disagree that the bowl system is a relative indicator of success from season to season, given the wide range of standards to achieve bowl eligibility and the fact that schedules vary so much from year to year. It's silly to pretend that the relative strength of a football team from year to year can be determined on something as sparse as whether or not you got to .500 as a football team.

(to be continued)

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

(continued)

"Comparing Mangino to Self"

I did not compare Mangino to Self. I was responding to the implication that I had held Mangino to a higher standard of success than Self because I didn't demand Self's removal after the two first-round tourney losses. I was merely pointing out that it would be silly to call for anyone's head for a couple of isolated instances, especially with the backdrop of other success at the highest level. What I didn't point out was that I have never demanded Mangino's firing for any loss--I just think we can do better and don't mind that he's gone. Clearly, you disagree.

==========================

"I don't think you've begun to prove why the decision to go in a different direction at coach was the right one."

Pity. I don't think you've begun to prove why the decision to go in a different direction at coach was the wrong one either. Honestly, the idea of "proving" something that is essentially a subjective opinion is flawed on it's face.

==========================

"You've had the recruiting numbers pushed back at you, and you've been called on giving a bogus account of Mangino's final season. Abandon your moral high ground."

How's that? What recruiting numbers did I offer up, exactly? I'm pretty sure the only thing I said about recruiting numbers was "do you have a source?"

I also didn't give a "bogus" account of Mangino's final season. Someone said that the team meeting took place prior to the Colorado game. I debunked that suggestion. I was then told that I was making fraudulent claims because a football player had complained of being poked in the chest during a walkthrough preparation for Colorado. Well, I didn't note when the incident that prompted the complaint occurred, so I'm not sure what I was lying about. Furthermore, there is no reference in that article to when the player complained (it may have happened after the Colorado game... who knows?) or when the investigation started or how extensive it was.

So what, exactly, did I say that was "bogus"?

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Keep chasing your tail 88. All you say is but, but, but, but. The facts are:

Coach Mangino is the only coach to win National Assistant Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year.

OU has not won a national title since he left. Kansas State has declined from their pinnacle after he left. Kansas was never as good before he arrived, and hasn't been as good since.

He recruited the 4th best class in the Big 12 before Perkins sent him packing.

He was bowl eligible the majority of his seasons at KU.

Your Orange Bowl argument is odd because you said that winning the conference and reaching the elite 8 aren't like winning the Orange Bowl. That is actually the closest thing you can get to the elite 8 in football. As far as it being a predictor of future success, I will let Mangino's recruiting results speak for itself, and his bowl appearance history speak for itself.

You are not reasoning well if you believe two first round losses after two consecutive Final Fours doesn't seem like a program in decline. It took Self nearly 5 years to reach the bar that Roy Williams set, and that isn't to mention the Larry Brown bar, the Phog Allen bar, and this is with all of the built in advantages afforded the KU program. I can't believe you have the audacity to criticize Coach Mangino when he himself raised the bar and then you snipe at him after he is gone.

My conclusion still is that you are a bandwagon fan who desperately wants to believe we didn't get rid of the best coach we could have had considering Kansas has a small population, no football history, no football traditions, and major, major conference opponents. If you have watched football in the years of Valesente and Allen, then I apologize for what I have said because it is hard to be a KU football fan. However, I believe you can not have been a real football fan since you snipe at Coach Mangino after all he has done for us.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I wouldn't have to say "but" if you wouldn't perpetually miscategorize my points and comments.

1) Suggesting that Mangino is somehow the reason that OU hasn't been able to win a title since he left is not only insane, but it's mostly irrelevant since he was never the head coach at OU, and so his success or failure there doesn't really speak to his ability to succeed as a head coach.

2) Still not understanding why having the fourth best class out of a single conference for one year is the trump card you think it is...

3) Again, the bowl system creates false importance to something that we tend to think of as mediocre in most sports settings: a .500 record. Citing bowl eligibility is a flashier way of saying "we got to .500!"

4) Winning a conference AND reaching an Elite 8 by winning three straight games in a single-elimination tournament are nothing like being ELECTED to go to a bowl game that--if we're being honest--we probably didn't deserve to be in given how the season finished.

5) Equating recruiting class rankings with future success is absurd. Yes, the former influences the latter, but to extrapolate that a coach will be successful because he brought in a good recruiting class is just dumb.

6) "You are not reasoning well" - the guy who thinks KU basketball was "in decline" during the 04-05 and 05-06 seasons. Right.

7) I'm not "sniping" at Mangino. I'm simply sharing my opinion that it is not the end of the world that he's no longer our coach. Grow up.

8) My conclusion is that you are a waste of my time.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 1 week ago

If assistant coaching had nothing to do with head coaching, people wouldn't often hire them to become head coaches.
Because recruiting is the best metric we have for judging future success.
Seems like you have a problem with how people define success in football. Take it up with them, not Coach Mangino.
The regular season games in football are quite like the single elimination games you speak off in basketball. If you lose more than 2 you are not going to make it to a BCS game. What do you call the selection committee that makes those highly scientific matchups you seem to appreciate in the tournament. Looks like an elections to me, just with fewer voters! In addition, beating the #5 team in the country also justifies our inclusion in the BCS bowls.
Do a modicum of research 88 and you'll find that recruiting correlates very closely with future success.
Why do two first round losses after consecutive Final Fours not constitute a decline?
You go way beyond conventional, normal means of measure success just to try to make him look bad. Bowls? Don't matter. Number of wins? Don't matter. Coach of the Year Awards? Don't matter. Past success? Don't matter. Recruiting rankings? Don't matter. You go on and on about the lack of a scientific process for selecting football teams for bowl games, and how 2007 was an anomaly, but there is nothing more anomalous than KUs 1988 season you have adopted in your screenname. I have news for you, but 2007 and 1988 aren't that different.
You conclusion is right. I am a waste of your time because I will make every single point you write look ridiculous.

pepper_bar 8 months, 2 weeks ago

"As great as the 2007-08 season was, the 2008-09 season was an incredible disappointment, losing 7 straight Big 12 games"

Nope. For everyone's benefit:

2007-08: Orange (W)

2008-09: Insight (W)

2009-10: 7 game losing streak

2010-11: Gill year 1

2011-12: Gill year 2

2012-13: Weis year 1

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I mixed the two points together.

2008-09 was a disappointment, but was a different season than the 2009-10 season which ended with 7 straight losses.

2008-09 involved a 6-6 finish for a team that based on preseason expectations should have been 7-5 or possibly 8-4, and based on how games actually played out, could have been 9-3 if not for a critical lack of execution own the stretch in several of those games.

2009-10 was again a disappointment, but it was so severe that it made the previous season seem successful in hindsight, but make no mistake, 2008-09 should have been worth more than a .500 record and the Insight Bowl.

dagger108 8 months, 2 weeks ago

"Mangino should never have been fired. Winning 3 of 4 bowl games in four years...we long for those days."

Through out the outliers (2-10 & 12-1) and what you are left with is a really average program. While we did win 3 of 4 bowl games, all but one was pretty much the bottom of the barrel, "anyone with a 500 record can get in" sort of games. Definitely better than where we're at, but also definitely not what they were spending millions to build. MM has some X's and O's ability (coordinator) but was just too lacking in the people skills necessary to lead the major program Lew was investing in and getting others to invest in building.

rockchalk1990 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I'll be there Saturday. As a student in the late '80s, early '90s, I can assure the younger crowd that KU football has been way worse than this, and I've never stopped coming! But I have one major problem with Keeg's article. Personally, I think Kevin Costner is an "okay" actor, certainly better than Keanu Reeves and the late, great Patrick Swayze. Give the guy a break, Keegan, Dances With Wolves won best picture.

VaJay 8 months, 2 weeks ago

This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.

WindmillGIANT 8 months, 2 weeks ago

It's a catch-22 of sorts, fans don't want to come because the team is bad, but it's going to be hard to recruit better players when they see a half-full stadium when they visit. The stadium atmosphere even against Rice wasn't that impressive, in fact, it was kind of sorry. There were empty seats to start, then a good number emptied out during halftime. The dance team did a number to "I want to dance with somebody" - is that 80's Whitney Houston I think - wow getting us pumped. The band wasn't really that great - their uniforms are terrible. The PA was crappy even. The only time they played music was on kickoff and for some reason the music was half the volume of everything else they announced and played on the PA. The cheerleaders only have one cheer: Stadium left - rock chalk, stadium right - jayhawk. My point is that we need to develop some more traditions and be more creative in our collective cheering. The team may struggle, but the atmosphere could still be more fun.

Phoghorn 8 months, 2 weeks ago

But at least the Fall Foliage should look nice for Homecoming.

KRichards 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I'll be there. If for no other reason than to enjoy the nice weather, drink some beer, and hangout with friends. Even with a not very good football team, being at game beats doing a lot of other things.

mikeville 8 months, 2 weeks ago

So I posted this last night on a different article, but it goes better here I think.-----

First of all, I just want to say, long time reader, first time poster. Season ticket holder for the past three years.

Losing to Rice is VERY embarrassing. And I am Angry, with a capital "A". When Weis said we would be competitive, I thought he meant with Baylor and TX Tech and etc. Not with Rice and SDSU. We should never lose to Rice. Ever! Except in baseball.

Consider: In the last three years, Rice has lost to UAB, Tulane, and Marshall. In those last three years, they have won 2, 4, and 4 games. This is a BAD team. This was their first win over a Big 12 team since the formation of the conference! This is embarrassing, and we should be upset about it.

Most of the mistakes have been talked over already. Missed tackles, the passing game, etc. But I want to talk about coaching and defense. 1st - Apparently, Weis must have thought he had a better shot at a 40 yard field goal into the wind than converting a fourth and 1... right? That's the only explanation. And if that's so, I'm worried and upset. 2nd - I thought Campo said in the spring that we would be playing tighter coverage on the corners. All day long, we lined up 8 to 10 yards off the Rice receivers, and they ran quick slants and hitches up and down the field. The failure to make adjustments was maddening.

So we have the right to be upset about it. We shouldn't be content with just going to the game and having fun (while it's still close, that is). We buy tickets. We buy parking. We buy concessions. We donate to the Williams Fund. It's expensive. So I am mad. Not only am I mad about the loss. I'm mad about about feeling like I've wasted my money the last three years.

We are a Big 12 team! Big 12 teams don't lose to Rice!!! We DESERVE a real football team, a real football program, a program that doesn't embarrass itself, its fan base, or its conference!

When the season started, I was hopeful for for 4-5 wins. But now, my friends... I'm sorry, we're staring 1-11 directly in the face. As I detailed above, Rice is terrible. They are the worst D1 team on our schedule. If we can't beat them at HOME, with an 11 point third quarter lead, with a 100 yard rusher, then I'm sorry, who ARE we gonna beat?

I'm just trying to be a realist here. I am one of those very few people who enjoy football more than basketball. Ever since my very first game back in 1993, Nebraska at Kansas, when we missed the two point conversion late in the game and could have won, I have loved this program.

But I am so frustrated with this program. Saturday was such a miserable day, with the way KSU played and the way we played, only slightly mitigated by Missouruh getting killed and Nebraskuh losing. You all remember them... the ones who don't care about history, tradition, or rivalry. Anyway, I digress.

I just... I'm getting close to the edge, and I really, really want to jump off. Tell me why I shouldn't...

Phoghorn 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I sure hope Coach Charlie Weis turns this around. But, if not, there is a young, up-and-coming coach at Missouri State. He might be able to at least get us to 5-ish wins per season.

ralster 8 months, 2 weeks ago

mikeville, as a fellow KU alum, I respect your commitment to KU football. What you have listed are good factual points. But my only suggestion is to consider a different big picture view: (You are nicely stating a BigXII team should never lose to a team like Rice), consider the bigger pix of what has actually happened to OUR BigXII team at KU. I cannot understate the undermining of the program that happened under the previous coach. The lack of accountability in the classroom, several players failing/ineligible, lack of conditioning, lack of any competence in on-field coaching. Add a rookie d-coordinator and it wasted a year out of our college kids' football eligibility, while teaching them very little about the game at the BCS level. Charlie Weis has to re-do everything. Some things will take longer than others. But make no mistake (your sentiment is absolutely correct): we wish to one day be competetive with OU and TX (& KSU). We are a BCS program. There are many, many alums who contributed to help buy out Gill, after Lew's ridiculous contract structuring left us no choice. Weis and the staff assembled sends a very strong msg about KU being serious about rebuilding football respectability. But we have to re-lay the foundation, which Weis is doing. He didnt have to do this at NDame, which was not as "broken" as KU was. Our DBs simply may not have the speed, size, or depth to play bump&run just yet. Campo nor Weis have yet had that full recruiting season. This season is an absolute patch-job. I am very, very willing to give an actual football mind (Weis) and a true pro (Campo) more time and more recruits to see what we can reliably show on the field. It has got to get better, and it will. We should have won a winnable game, but hey, at least we are lamenting things that could have given us 1 1st-down, or dinked in that 1 FG...instead of being blown out. Progress may come slow, more than likely. We need X's+O's AND the "Moes and Joes" to make a real, comprehensive difference. Hang in there, you are not alone.

Table_Rock_Jayhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Mikeville - I'm with you on everything you said. Weis's ability to pull recruits might be something to hang our hats on....but....his 2013 class is not coming along very well compared to other Big 12 schools.

We will find out how dedicated Weis and Campo are to this program if we only win 1 or 2 games this year...and fail to pull in a decent recruiting class.

Willing to give Weis a couple of recruiting classes to see what they can do...but I'm losing confidence.

jross1972 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I still have faith in Charlie Weis, but ahh....how I miss Mark Mangino.

ralster 8 months, 1 week ago

Be more specific: You miss a big-time playmaker named Todd Reesing.

stinkybulldog 8 months, 2 weeks ago

One day closer to basketball season.

kuwells 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Would it be a good time to point out the pirate already has an upset win in the shadow of Oregon?

jason7of9 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I miss Turner, anyone know how the whole Jordan Webb Colorado thing is going? Couldn't be any worse then losing to Rice right?

Kansas1241 8 months, 2 weeks ago

This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.

Phoghorn 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Jason is a KSU guy, just sayin'...

Jayhawker28 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Anyone disagree that we need to start playing the taller receivers more often? Let's start with Josh Ford and Omigie. Will certainly help Crist with his accuracy, which has been awful.

Throwing fade routes to 5'9 receviers is just pathetic and futile.

inteldesign 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I have thought the same thing, but I am also wondering what the hell are we doing in practice for five hours a day. Doing dumb-ass up and downs, hitting foam pads, jumping in tires and that stuff should have ended some time ago. We should be running plays, scrimmage, scrimmage, scrimmage. Crist should be playing the equivalent of a games worth of passing every fricking day. There is no excuse for the rust.

ralster 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Our fate was sealed with the 2nd interception which was an attempt to Omigie. That 3rd down failure is on Crist, as he had all day. Absolutely all day with maybe 4-5 actual seconds ticking before he made a rookie-looking pass. I have big hopes for Dayne, and the analytical answer is he simply needs more time with the receivers to get in sync. I wont knock a receiver's size...remember Warren Moon and the early 90s Oiler run&shoot? 5'10 Drew Hill...Its all about a chemistry and connection with receiver that has to be built and practiced. Especially with a finesse Weis offense.

OakvilleJHawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

There must be some type of Karmatic Universal Balance at work here.

Outside of brief bursts of success, the Gods of College Basketball [Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, Indiana, UCLA] have generally and consistently sucked at football.

I, for the life of me, cannot come up with any logical explanation.

The opposite doesn't necessarily apply as dramamtically [Alabama, LSU, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Michigan State] have all had relatively long term competitive bball programs at one time or another.

It's probably Lew's fault.

Phoghorn 8 months, 2 weeks ago

BREAKING NEWS Brock Berglund has just transferred to the University of Siberia!

inteldesign 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Thanks, I needed that.

jaykan7 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Don't give up huh? Besides being a great scholastic institution all we have is men's basketball. So for 75% of the year we are the laughing stock of the Big 12, and when a team beats our basketball team that makes their year. I can't understand why we are not able to win in any other sport consistently.

Besides the parking, a fan base that really only truely goes crazy for basketball, why would a recruit want to come play for us after they have sat through one of our football games. I watched on TV, the stadium looked pretty full but sounded like it was about half full. I also watched the KSU game, their crowd was going crazy, I watched the Virginia vs Penn St. game, Virginia's stadium went nuts over their win, I watched multiple games and by comparison our stadium's enthusiasm was lame IMHO. If it wasn't for basketball we would be a D2 school. Sorry for the rant...we should be better and expect better.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

We have a university that heads a state of 2 million people with no major metro areas inside the borders.

Honestly, it's downright amazing that KU has been as good for as long and as consistently as it has in basketball. We just don't have the resources or population base or destination to attract the kind of talent needed to sustain long-term success in non-revenue sports, and of the two revenue sports, we are successful in the one that requires fewer resources.

jaykan7 8 months, 2 weeks ago

What are you talking about, KC is right up K-10. How can we not pull in major talent? Our FB program sucks, baseball sucks, womens sports suck, with the exception of womens basketball last year. We are great at baskteball because we have always had good to great coaches. Resources...why has K-State kicked our tails in every sport for the last few years, and be honest they have beat us a couple of times in basketball, our coveted sport in the last few years. I think we have a bunch of educated dumbasses running the school.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

First of all, Kansas City only has 2.1 million people, and that's only if you include the multitude of suburbs and connecting municipalities. In the grand scheme of major metropolitan areas, it's not very big. Don't get me wrong, I love Kansas City and think it has a lot to offer as a city, just not size. I live there currently.

The metro area ranks about 30th in the U.S., and the state ranks 33rd. The simple fact is that this affects the amount of money the athletic department can generate, as well as the richness of the talent pool compared to other football powerhouses in/near populous states and/or population centers.

It's not impossible to be good at non-revenue sports, but it makes it an uphill battle. The story about KSU "kicking our tail" in every sport year after year is a complete fabrication. They had a year or two in which they had a lopsided showing against us, but with something like collegiate athletics, where year-to-year success is so dependent upon athletes who rotate in/out every 1-4 years, you have to look at the long-term record. One or two years here and there are too isolated to draw meaning.

In the grand scheme of things, neither KSU nor KU have athletic departments to throw a stone at. KU's department is still orders of magnitude better than KSU's by virtue of just how successful a national brand the basketball team is, but for the most part, it will always be an uphill battle at Kansas in terms of non-revenue sports generating consistent success. Most of the schools who do that are either huge schools and/or are located in highly-populated areas.

jaykan7 8 months, 2 weeks ago

You make good points, overall records and so on. I guess when you look at it KC isn't as big as Miami, Chicago, Dallas and places like that, but KC does offer alot. I would argue that our athletic department has been pretty volatile over the last few years and it is frustrating. We do have a national brand in basketball...but if that is all we have to go on, its a little depressing. Besides the national brand, what about all of the people in our great state that long for a more complete program. East coast, west coast yeah they see our basketball but the rest of the year, we are a ghost.

jaykan7 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Please reply, your factual conversation actually calmed me down a bit.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I agree that the volatility in our athletic department has made it harder to be successful in non-revenue sports than it already is. Perkins, for the most part, was a pretty mediocre AD. He was excellent when it came to finding ways to generate revenue, but obviously being a competent AD is about more than just that. And I think that some of his revenue-generation solutions were short-sighted, almost as if he never planned on an extended stay at KU and just needed to use quick fixes to show that he could do what he was hired to do and get paid in the immediate future.

I do feel for those who want more than just the occasional relevance in sports when basketball comes around. It's just going to be tough sledding for a school like Kansas, because on top of the resource disposition we are in, we also don't get a lot of love from the coasts because we are in supposed "flyover" country.

jaykan7 8 months, 2 weeks ago

From what your saying Lew was a complete idiot if he didn't consider KU a long term job. Arguably one of the best jobs in the country. AD for a major university. As for the coasts, what they say has never carried much weight with me.

nuleafjhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2012

Keegan Don’t give up just yet

They left off the sub-title -

Wait until next week.

nuleafjhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Maybe people just can't take the Jayhawk mascot seriously enough.

What if we were to change our name to

The University of Kansas Angry Beavers ?

Rock Chalk Angry Beavers !! by nuleafjhawk

nuleafjhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

470 - I laugh to keep from crying. You want to see something REALLY bad/funny? Google KSU - the mask. Now there's something their fans can really be proud of.

jayhawk1991 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Its sad to say, but something like that doesn't surprise me coming from k-state. Bill Snyder is an incredible coach, but remember.....he won't be there forever.

inteldesign 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I cannot believe that K-State has a guy with a beergut as their unofficial fan spokesperson. What am I thinking? Of course I can.

Noweigh 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Final word on Mangino......still say he should never have been fired. His long, drawn out public execution was inexcuseable..for any program. Regardless of schedule, regardless of conference arrangment, etc. The University of Kansas went to four bowl games in a row, won three of them, including the Orange Bowl. Nuff said, no other coach in the past comes remotely close to that. Maybe they could have at least put him on short leash for poor behaviour at times, with a no-tolerance policy going forward. Ok, I'm over it....sort of.

phogphan2000 8 months, 2 weeks ago

At this point anyone who thinks firing Mangino was a good move isn't worth arguing with, talking to, or probably knowing in any fashion. So those of us who never wanted to see him fired in the first place should just go ahead and move on.

nuleafjhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Regardless of how anyone feels about Mangino - it's a fairly safe bet to say that it's not the final word about him !!!

kugrad93 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Your mind is playing tricks on you. KU went to four bowls in a six-year period during Mangino's eight-year tenure and won three of them. As for your assertion that no other KU coach comes close, Glen Mason's teams (four winning seasons in eight years) likely would have gone to the same number of bowl games as Mangino's if there had been as many bowls in the 1990s as there are now.

mvjayhawk 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Mangino was a ticking time bomb....(and he did have several mini explosions....) but the fact that he isn't in coaching right now, almost three full years after resigning at KU, then that tells you something. his reputation has not allowed him to be to get back in. i'm not saying i know he wants back in.....but c'mon...he's been a coach for a long, long time....NCAA assistant of the year, BCS bowl winning head coach...he's had too much success, NOT to have a job right now, if he really wanted one.

did i like the way it all went down? of course not....this was a Perkins led deal...and I think Lew Perkins will go down one day as one of the worst ADs this athletic dept. ever had...but that's another story.

all of this being said, what's being written above is just plain idiotic. it's expected...because this fan base is soooooo insecure, it's unbelievable....but it is wrong. we lost to Rice. it was a good game....Rice isn't a bad team...they have good coaches, some decent offensive players, and they actually played UCLA pretty tough (UCLA just beat Nebraska...and the Bruins have an excellent young dual threat QB).

we were 2-10 last year....3-9 the year before. we had the worst defense in football last year....not near the bottom...the BOTTOM. we brought in a QB who knew the head coaches' offense, although he has two bad knees, and is basically a shell of his former self. we cleaned house, so we're playing with 5th year guys, and brand new guys.

just like I said with HCMM, it's going to take some TIME to turn it around. I mean good grief, c'mon. HCTG did not have a clue...and we took definitive action, and our new AD went out and hired the best man he could for the job. you MUST give him some time to put in his stuff, recruit his kids, and get it going. will we go 1-11 this year? maybe so....but as the long as the seeds are sown for improvement in the future...then it's all good.

if we don't have a crowd for this week's game, so be it. i blame no one for not showing up to games. people want to see exciting, competitive play (i will be there rain or shine). and if there is something better to do, then so be it. the fans weren't really coming to the games in 2002 or 2003 either....so this is not at all new. but my goodness, were they there in 2007 and 2008...and to quite a bit, 2009.

let the program develop....it does NOT happen overnight. this sounds obvious, but with this crowd, it has to be explained over and over and over and over again.

phogphan2000 8 months, 2 weeks ago

I'm sure HCCW wants KU to become QB-U, so he's got a lot of eggs in the Crist basket this season. No doubt he should have run the ball more and taken the safe bet at winning the game, but in the long run this year is about Weis showing recruits that he's a great offensive coach and can mold talent on that end. Also Campo has the defense playing tougher than last season's which has to be at least a little bit encouraging.

Personally I'm not that big of a football fan, but it's still easy to enjoy going to a game. Putting a good football team on the field is only going to heighten exposure for the bball team, and a winning culture across the board in an athletic department is also a positive for every team. So people can write off fball, I know cfb completely lost me last season with the BCS title game they put together, but if fans support the team it could have a positive effect on the bball program and school as a whole.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Mark Mangino.

First off, he got a raw deal in the way he was ousted. If Perkins' had any notion of keeping Mangino on staff, then he would have addressed the alleged problem in a completely different way. It was clear to me that Perkins did it that way because it had the potential to create a huge rift in the team. HOWEVER...

To suggest that this meeting was to blame for Mangino's unacceptable final season is wrong and based on completely false information. Someone suggested that the meeting occurred prior to the Colorado game, which was the first of the 7-game losing streak. For anyone who actually cares about facts, rather than just spouting somewhat correct-SOUNDING information that supports their point, here is the timeline for that season:

10/10 - KU's Big 12 schedule begins against Iowa State

10/17 - KU plays Colorado and loses

10/24 - 11/14: KU plays four MORE Big 12 games against Oklahoma, @Texas Tech, @Kansas State and Nebraska, losing all four, in spite of being in position to win at least two of them (KSU and Nebraska come to mind).

11/16 - Lew Perkins meets with players

In other words, KU was 1-5 in Big 12 play prior to that meeting and had looked unimpressive in the non-conference games prior to Big 12 play. It's just a flat-out falsehood to imply that the 7-game losing streak is due to Perkins' (admittedly shady) power play to oust Mangino. More likely, Perkins saw the struggles and fan displeasure and saw the time as ripe to use the player abuse issue as a catalyst to get him out. And honestly, though I disagreed with the way everything went down, Perkins might have been correct that it was the only way to get rid of a guy who had earned status among a large portion of the fanbase as infallible. We continue to see evidence of Mangino attaining this status, the way a small group stalwartly defends him and claims that the answer to our problems is to bring him back, while rationalizing the guy's shortcomings with presumption and misinformation.

In my opinion, he needed to go. Maybe not when he did and under the circumstances he did, but he wasn't the long-term answer for KU football, and I, for one, am glad that he was removed before his cult status would have made it extremely hard for future AD's to fire him. KU has a long tradition of stinking in football, but that doesn't mean we need to accept someone like Mangino because he gave us our first glimpse of sustained postseason appearances in an era that is littered with meaningless bowls.

Whether or not the Manginolites want to admit it or not, there are significant questions about his skills as a head coach. Obviously being at a football also-ran like Kansas makes it harder to parse out just where the coach's skills end and the program's predisposition begins, but that doesn't change the fact that Mangino's accomplishments were only gilded by the comparative drought of prior KU football success.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Oops! "The Kansas Athletic Department is conducting an investigation of football coach Mark Mangino and the Journal-World has confirmed the investigation began after Arist Wright complained that Mangino poked him in the chest in the days before KU took on Colorado."

I found that after 2 minutes of researching your fraudulent claims. Keep living in a fantasy world where Perkins did the right thing. Perkins of the $150,000 private jet bill he was so kind to saddle us with. Why should anybody here care what you have to say if you are going to just make stuff up and rewrite history?

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Are you slow, or do you just play a slow person on this forum?

I'm not saying Perkins "did the right thing", nor am I in any way supporting ANYTHING about Perkins other than he and happened to agree (and likely for very different reasons) that Mangino was not the long-term solution at KU. As far as I'm concerned, it's pure coincidence we agree.

Furthermore, someone said that the full team meeting with Lew Perkins was the turning point that led to the 7-game losing streak. Aside from the fact that the investigation didn't even start until after the first of those seven games, you're doing a bait and switch and now saying it's the investigation that caused the problems. What, exactly did I claim that was fraudulent, Mr. Mangino Apologist?

I think people who care about facts and objective reality might care what I have to say, but I don't expect an overly-emotional Mangino fanboy to worry himself with things like understanding my actual viewpoint before engaging Message Board Flame Mode. I said something critical of Mangino, therefore I must inherently agree with everything that happened to him and be of the same mind as the sleazebag who ousted him.

If you want to understand my actual views, we can try this again, but not until then.

MartyrMangino 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Maybe if you want to understand actual views, you shouldn't misquote my comment about the investigation. The LJworld confirmed it was BEFORE the Colorado game. You are incorrect to misquote the LJWorld article to say that it happened after the Colorado game.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

The LJWorld confirmed that the INCIDENT that prompted the investigation happened prior to the Colorado game. It didn't speak to the duration, scope or ANYTHING else about the investigation.

And again, my original point was in response to someone claiming the MEETING had happened prior to the Colorado game.

ralster 8 months, 2 weeks ago

mvjayhawk => Perfect post. I will take a competent Weis offense. His play calling doesnt really shine unless he has alot of weapons and a decent O-line (true for any offense really), and the QB/rcvrs really need to have their timing in sync. Personally, I like the NFL because of the execution and the talent level, but if we can get a pro-style offense and execution to go with it at KU, I'm all for it. Having a similar competence on the defensive side of the ball is the other key to a tough football team. I'm thrilled to have a guy like Campo. He clearly stated more than once that he needs more size, speed, and talent to be able to have a chance against BigXII foes. He already knows what it will take. Give him time and bodies. Give Weis time and bodies. Lets be honest. This program degenerated over 2-3 yrs...It will take 2-3yrs to show a rebuilt, reliable, fan-trustable performance on the field. You could get Jim Harbaugh or Urban Meyer in here, but honestly, until they get their recruits and system efficiently operating on-field, you wont see the full benefit. Some fans here have lost all analytical objectivity, and have lost their patience...thus whine like babies. It took exactly 1 close loss to bring out the doom-sayers--> Nice job, fair weather "ku fans"!

ralster 8 months, 2 weeks ago

...and to those grinchin' about Mangino, I could care less. That doesnt help us build a team right now, does it? Zenger is serious about rebuilding football, and so are the army of alums that wanted something different than the direction of the last 2yrs, that backed Zenger fully in doing what he had to do. Now we slowly begin the climb.

marchphog88 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Just to be clear, since I'm presuming that I fall into the "grinchin' about Mangino" camp, I have no axe to grind against Mangino. I just get tired of hearing how everything would be fine if he were here. 1) He's not here, 2) There's no guarantee that things would be any different than the bulk of Mangino's career if he was here, 3) He's not coming here.

Personally, I'm all in on giving Charlie Weis the time he needs to rebuild this program, so long as he shows incremental improvement. I don't think he'll ultimately be any more of a permanent solution at coach than Mangino was, but I would have loved to see how much different things would be if he (or someone of his caliber) had been the hire after Mangino instead of Gill.

The Rice loss was tough, but if I was able to bide my time with Gill after a loss to SDSU, I can do the same here. I didn't officially get on the "fire Gill" bandwagon until the KSU loss in Year 2, when it was clear there was no improvement being made and the losses were so bad that we were permanently damaging the ability of anyone, Gill or otherwise, to get quality athletes to come play in Lawrence.

AtlJaybird 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Agree

ralster 8 months, 1 week ago

marchphogg, We 100% agree. Your points 1, 2, & 3 are the perfect summation. I moved on from Mangino the day he left. Mangino had 1 helluva playmaker named Todd Reesing. If Cummings or Jake Heaps plays like that, we are good at that position. Cue Campo's concern prior to the Rice game about what a defensive headache it is to play against a dual-threat QB. We need one of those. Even Peyton Manning ran for a 1st-down during the Broncos/Steelers game. Even at his age. If there is any desire whatsoever in Dayne Crist to play at the next level...he has absolutely got to play with reckless abandon. Now. Do it with the arm, do it with the legs. If the legs are already gone, then its all a moot point, isnt it. The trend at the "next level" (NFL) is to have more and more mobile QBs, who are also tough customers physically. I am sure Dayne knows that...but in the heat of action, what instincts and tendencies of his come to the surface?

AtlJaybird 8 months, 1 week ago

What's a sure sign that our football team is struggling? When the Mangino dead horse gets dragged out and beat to death again, and again, and again....

Boobfuzz 8 months, 1 week ago

^ Sad but true. This should be the last Mangino post.

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