Column: Warinner’s stock rising quickly

By Tom Keegan     Jan 28, 2015

Ed Warinner, Kansas University’s offensive coordinator oh-so-many head coaches and so few years ago, was back in Lawrence on Tuesday, although not in the capacity that he had hoped.

Warinner applied for the head-coaching vacancy at Kansas, a school coming off its worst five-year stretch in history, after quarterback Todd Reesing used up his eligibility and Mark Mangino and his staff — including Warinner, the record-breaking OC — were fired.

NCAA rules prohibit college football coaches from talking about specific recruits, but it wouldn’t take Inspector Clouseau to figure out that Warinner was at Lawrence High to watch Amani Bledsoe work out.

Coaches from all the college football bluebloods have traveled the same path, but Warinner’s the only one among them who coaches players who won a ring for each of their final three victories. The Buckeyes won Big Ten title rings for blasting Wisconsin, 59-0, Sugar Bowl championship rings for defeating Alabama, 42-35, national-championship rings for knocking off Oregon, 42-20.

“The NCAA calls it bumping,” Lawrence High coach Dirk Wedd said of the rule that allows college coaches to “bump into (Bledsoe), say a few words, give him a card. Then everything is texting and Facebook stuff. That’s all allowable, if the kid intiates it.”

Warinner did not discuss recruiting when we chatted on the phone Tuesday, but he didn’t mind sharing what it was like to win a national championship.

“It was something, boy,” Warinner said. “It was exciting stuff. Didn’t really see it coming, but once we got some momentum going and once we kind of steamrolled through Wisconsin, we had a lot of momentum then.

“I think that awakened people to, ‘These guys need to be in it and one of these other teams needs to be out.’ There was controversy about that and we ended up getting in. I think at the end of the day, they made the right decision because we were the best team.”

Warinner’s offensive linemen went from the most criticized unit on the team in the opening two weeks of the season to one lauded for dominant play during jewelry-collecting season. Kansas was in coaching-search mode at the beginning of that period.

David Beaty, Tim Beck, Clint Bowen and Warinner were the four men the search committee interviewed on the phone for the permanent head coaching job that went to Bowen on an interim basis after Charlie Weis was canned four games into his third season with a 2-2 record in 2014 and 6-22 overall record.

Beaty was hired as KU’s head coach and retained Bowen as defensive coordinator. Beck, who would have been Warinner’s choice as offensive coordinator had he landed the KU job, works with Warinner at Ohio State as co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach. Warinner is responsible for the play-calling.

“I’m back to a role I’m familiar with so I’m excited about that,” said Warinner, who earned the promotion after Tom Herman left to become head coach at Houston.

Warinner explained his involvement with KU during the coaching search.

“I ended up talking to them on the phone a couple of days before the Big Ten championship,” Warinner said. “The timeline, as I understood it, was they were going to discuss the phone interviews and then bring people back the following week. Obviously, none of that came to fruition, so they changed paths and went in a different direction.”

Warinner didn’t have time to sulk because the quest for the first national championship earned on the field, not at the ballot box, occupied his attention.

“It’s kind of surreal,” he said of the national-championship game played in the Jerry Jones Dome. “It doesn’t really sink in because you have to stay in the moment and you have a job to do with your responsiblities and keeping your players focused. Playing in that big venue down in Dallas was unbelievable.”

LeBron James, a big Ohio State fan, was in the locker room. The national-championship media day resembled the Super Bowl’s. VIP’s crawled all over the place.

“It was really exciting and it’s still hard to put your arms around that we are national champs and here comes another season rolling up on us and we have to get ready for that,” Warinner said.

How much time did the staff take off to savor the accomplishment?

“We had a half a day off,” Warinner said. “We got back on Tuesday night around 7 o’clock and met on Wednesday at noon, talked about the game, talked about recruiting, talked about what’s ahead. We were out recruiting Wednesday night. That weekend, we had kids in and we’ve been going non-stop since.”

After signing day, one week from today, the coaches will “get a few days to catch up.”

Warinner wants to be a head coach and will get that opportunity. He didn’t get a second interview from Kansas. Three rings and a promotion later, he’s a hotter coaching candidate than ever and could be a year away from landing a job that will pay more than twice the $800,000 base salary Beaty’s earning and won’t have as deep a hole out of which to climb. Beaty and Warinner both won. Bowen retained his job with a big pay raise and Beck went from OC at Nebraska to coaching two former Heisman Trophy candidates plus a national-championship quarterback. Tough to pick a loser out of that group. All four ex-Mark Mangino assistants have their careers in good spots.

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