Mark Mangino was formally introduced today as Kansas University’s new football coach.
“I get a fresh start and everybody on this team gets a fresh start,” Mangino said at a press conference today at KU. “. . . Our goal is to be the best team in the Big 12.”
Mangino, 45, who has been involved as an assistant coach in the successful turn-around of the Kansas State and Oklahoma football programs over the last 11 years, becomes KU’s 35th head coach.
He just finished working the past three seasons as Oklahoma’s assistant head coach/offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. While there, he received the 2000 Frank Broyles Award as the top assistant football coach in college football.
“Mark Mangino has been associated with football programs that have experienced phenomenal success and he has been a key ingredient in building that success,” KU athletics director Allen Bohl said in prepared remarks.
“We wanted to hire a coach who understands and executes the process for winning championships,” Bohl said. “We were looking for someone who is highly organized, hard-working, detail oriented and who will be a teacher, a disciplinarian, a motivator, a tremendous recruiter and believes in the concepts of family values.”
Chancellor Robert Hemenway indicated that Mangino would bring important characteristics to the leadership role of the KU football program.
“The appointment of Mark Mangino as head football coach at the University of Kansas represents a meaningful step forward in the resurgence of our program,” Hemenway said in his prepared remarks. “Mark has a great record, not only as a successful coach, but someone who has integrity and is committed to helping student-athletes on and off the field of competition.”
Mangino signed a five-year contract at an annual salary of $128,438.
Bohl said he was searching for a coach that knows what it takes to turn around programs.
As assistant head coach at OU, Mangino helped the Sooner staff take a program that was 5-6 in 1998 and and then turn out seasons of 7-5 (1999), 13-0 (2000) and 10-2 (2001).
Mangino served as recruiting coordinator, running game coordinator and, in 1998, was appointed assistant head coach at Kansas State.
The season prior to his arrival in Manhattan, the Wildcats posted a 5-6 record. Over the next eight seasons, K-State went 71-23-1 with six consecutive nine-plus win seasons and played in six consecutive bowl games.
Overall, Kansas State and Oklahoma teams have a combined 101-30-1 record and been ranked in the top 25 nationally in eight of 11 seasons during Mangino’s involvement on the coaching staff.
