HONOLULU Coach Glen Mason isn’t the only one coming back to Kansas University’s football team next fall.
Junior tailback June Henley, who earlier this week said that Mason’s announcement that he would leave KU for Georgia might influence him to declare himself eligible for the NFL draft, on Monday he said he planned to come back to Kansas, just like his head coach.
“I really didn’t come out with a decision about whether to leave or to stay,” said Henley, who rushed for 107 yards and two scores and caught three passes for 41 yards in the Jayhawks’ 51-30 victory over UCLA in the Aloha Bowl on Monday at Aloha Stadium.
“I like (Mason) and I like his program. I’m going to be here next year playing with my old teammates. It would have to be something big (to leave for the NFL), but I’ve pretty much made my decision.”
As far as KU junior defensive tackle Kevin Kopp is concerned, there’s no reason for Mason or Henley to bolt.
Mason told the team that he had called Georgia and had decided to stay at KU on Monday morning before the team left for Aloha Stadium.
“At first I was like, ‘Is this really happening?'” Kopp said. “Then it settled in and I realized he did say he was coming back. we have a great group of guys, and I know he loves us a lot. I can’t see why he wouldn’t want to come back anyway.”
He’ll come back a winner. KU improved to 2-0 in bowl games under Mason.
“When they told us, we were in shock,” KU senior QB Mark Williams said. “I was happy, because (Mason) built this program. He took us from begin 1-10 to 10-2.”
The Jayhawks won a 10th game for just the third time in school history and the first since 1905. They did so in part because of a quick 17-0 first-half run against the Bruins, a 20-point third quarter and enough big plays down the stretch to negate UCLA’s 23-point fourth-quarter burst.
“We knew that we would be able to score on them,” said KU junior wide receiver Isaac Byrd. “We were very confident on the offensive side of the ball. They didn’t believe in us coming in. Once they got down 14-0, they started to believe. But when you fall behind 14-0 on this team, you’re not going to catch us.”
The high-scoring affairthe teams combined for 81 points, and Aloha Bowl recordseemed out of the realm. Except, maybe, to Byrd.
“We felt coming in that they were going to shoot it out with us,” said Byrd, who led the team with 116 receiving yards, including a bowl-record 77-yard TD pass. “That’s the way we’d rather play. We didn’t want to play a 10-7 ball game where they come down in the fourth quarter and kick a field goal to tie the game. We wanted to put some points on the board and say, ‘Catch us.'”
UCLA entered as a five-point favorite, despite it’s record (7-5) and unranked stature. KU is 10-2 and ranked No. 11.