Four straight losing seasons resulted in two dismissals, a demotion and a promotion from among the Kansas University football assistant coaching ranks.
KU coach Terry Allen announced Monday that defensive coordinator Ardell Wiegandt and offensive line coach Walt Klinker had been dismissed from the staff, and that Darrell Wyatt, KU’s wide receivers coach/assistant head coach since 1997, had been promoted to offensive coordinator and associate head coach.
KU football coach Terry Allen
Bill Salmon, KU’s offensive coordinator the past four seasons, will serve only as running backs coach next season.
“This was a very difficult and extremely painful decision for me personally,” Allen said in a release. “However, I felt that it was necessary for the future of our program.”
The moves by far the most drastic in Allen’s four-year tenure severed two long-standing ties between Allen and his Northern Iowa roots.
Wiegandt, who also served as KU’s defensive line coach, spent eight seasons under Allen at UNI.
Klinker, who also joined the Kansas staff in 1997, was a 13-year aide at UNI. Seven of those years he served under Allen.
“The university must feel it needs to make a change,” Klinker said. “I must not have gotten the job done. I’m a team player, and if this will improve the team and help Terry’s chances of winning, then I will accept this decision for the good of the team.”
“We didn’t perform on defense this season, and that’s my responsibility,” Wiegandt said. “That’s why these things happen in coaching.”
There was no immediate word on replacements, and Allen did not return several phone calls.
Despite bowl aspirations, the Jayhawks of 2000 struggled to a 4-7 season, their fourth straight losing record in Allen’s tenure. He’s in the fourth year of a six-year contract and, though he never had a losing season in eight years at alma mater UNI, hasn’t won more than five games in any year at Kansas.
Allen’s moves apparently were designed to shore up a defense that faltered down the stretch and strengthen an offense that became predictable at times this past season. After the season, Allen lamented the Jayhawks’ offensive play-calling after running backs Moran Norris and David Winbush became injured.
The move also should help keep Wyatt, a hot young assistant credited with many of the Jayhawks’ recruiting successes, in the fold. Wyatt has no previous experience as an offensive coordinator, but he did serve as passing-game coordinator for two years at Sam Houston State.
Allen didn’t immediately designate a new defensive coordinator, but Tim Burke, who joined the KU staff last spring as secondary co-coach, has served in that capacity before. Burke was defensive coordinator at South Dakota State in 1982-85, at North Dakota in 1986-88 and Ball State in 1992-94.
Burke came to Kansas from Purdue, where he coached the secondary from 1997 to 99.
Allen’s announcement came a day after the start of the winter evaluation period, which runs through Feb. 3. The evaluation period goes dead from Dec. 18-Jan. 1 for holiday break and again Jan. 2-4 for the coaches convention.