Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoBack in the mid-1960s, following a particularly galling Kansas University football performance, head coach Jack Mitchell complained to the media that his players had played so poorly they had disgraced their pioneer forefathers.
I don’t know why, but I kept waiting for interim KU coach Tom Hayes to deliver a similar sermon to the media following Saturday’s particularly galling 49-7 loss to Iowa State.
Hayes obviously doesn’t operate that way, though.
Contemporary head coaches don’t reveal to the media what they tell their players at halftime or after the game or at practice or in private.
Hayes always puts on a mild-mannered front, yet I can’t imagine him not raising his voice several decibels in the locker room with the Jayhawks trailing 28-0 at halftime. Hayes must have reamed his players good. At least I hope he did, because they deserved it.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoIn fact, the Jayhawks just flat-out quit in the second quarter. Or as Hayes euphemized in even tones: “I didn’t think we hung in there. I don’t think we stood up, and I told them that at halftime.”
This is a Kansas football team that has basically been in the tank since it dropped that heart-breaking 38-34 decision to Missouri on Oct. 20 at Memorial Stadium. If the Jayhawks had won that game, they would have had a 3-3 record. Instead, they were 2-4 and faced the pitiless gantlet of successive games against Kansas State, Nebraska and Texas.
They were waxed in Manhattan, 40-6, and that defeat cost coach Terry Allen his job, although he wasn’t officially fired until the Sunday after the 51-7 flogging here by Nebraska. Last week the Jayhawks played for the first time with Hayes as interim head coach and were trashed by Texas, 59-0.
After that game, I wrote the Jayhawks were putrid and took some heat for using such a pungently negative word. Well, they were putrid and I’ll go a step farther and say they were just as putrid in the first half on Saturday against the Cyclones.
However, in the second half of the ISU game, the Jayhawks woke up no doubt spurred in part by Hayes’ halftime harangue and actually outgained Iowa State. But then, of course, it was too late.
I have nothing but admiration for Hayes. Thrust into the thankless job of coaching a team stripped of incentives, he has maintained a stiff upper lip while being outscored 118-7, uttering strings of positive statements, like “We have good kids in the program, and I want to keep helping them.”
Hayes is a good soldier who may yet become a general, but it won’t be at Kansas University unless you believe the rhetoric from athletics director Al Bohl that Hayes will be considered for the head job. Yeah, right and I’m Harry Potter, and KU will make Quidditch a varsity sport.
Bohl is committed to hiring someone who will knock the socks off the Kansas faithful grown weary of a succession of obscure hirees who were foisted upon them because they had been successful on a lower plane and, more important, came cheap.
Meanwhile, the Jayhawks have to play out the string. Unmercifully, Saturday wasn’t the season home finale, even though it was billed as Senior Day. Kansas still has to play Wyoming next week.
“The seniors have to set an example for the younger players and beat Wyoming,” senior cornerback Andrew Davison said. “Next year won’t be such a monstrous schedule, either.”
Kansas did have the most difficult schedule in the nation, at least according to the NCAA, and on paper really had no hope of compiling a record better than 5-6. But now they’re sitting with a 2-8 record and will no doubt have a difficult time getting their game faces on for Wyoming, also 2-8.
Hey, maybe they’ll dub it The 2-8 Bowl.
Still, here’s hoping they’ll strap ’em on for Tom “Good Soldier” Hayes. He deserves to go out of here a winner.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoBack in the mid-1960s, following a particularly galling Kansas University football performance, head coach Jack Mitchell complained to the media that his players had played so poorly they had disgraced their pioneer forefathers.
I don’t know why, but I kept waiting for interim KU coach Tom Hayes to deliver a similar sermon to the media following Saturday’s particularly galling 49-7 loss to Iowa State.
Hayes obviously doesn’t operate that way, though.
Contemporary head coaches don’t reveal to the media what they tell their players at halftime or after the game or at practice or in private.
Hayes always puts on a mild-mannered front, yet I can’t imagine him not raising his voice several decibels in the locker room with the Jayhawks trailing 28-0 at halftime. Hayes must have reamed his players good. At least I hope he did, because they deserved it.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoIn fact, the Jayhawks just flat-out quit in the second quarter. Or as Hayes euphemized in even tones: “I didn’t think we hung in there. I don’t think we stood up, and I told them that at halftime.”
This is a Kansas football team that has basically been in the tank since it dropped that heart-breaking 38-34 decision to Missouri on Oct. 20 at Memorial Stadium. If the Jayhawks had won that game, they would have had a 3-3 record. Instead, they were 2-4 and faced the pitiless gantlet of successive games against Kansas State, Nebraska and Texas.
They were waxed in Manhattan, 40-6, and that defeat cost coach Terry Allen his job, although he wasn’t officially fired until the Sunday after the 51-7 flogging here by Nebraska. Last week the Jayhawks played for the first time with Hayes as interim head coach and were trashed by Texas, 59-0.
After that game, I wrote the Jayhawks were putrid and took some heat for using such a pungently negative word. Well, they were putrid and I’ll go a step farther and say they were just as putrid in the first half on Saturday against the Cyclones.
However, in the second half of the ISU game, the Jayhawks woke up no doubt spurred in part by Hayes’ halftime harangue and actually outgained Iowa State. But then, of course, it was too late.
I have nothing but admiration for Hayes. Thrust into the thankless job of coaching a team stripped of incentives, he has maintained a stiff upper lip while being outscored 118-7, uttering strings of positive statements, like “We have good kids in the program, and I want to keep helping them.”
Hayes is a good soldier who may yet become a general, but it won’t be at Kansas University unless you believe the rhetoric from athletics director Al Bohl that Hayes will be considered for the head job. Yeah, right and I’m Harry Potter, and KU will make Quidditch a varsity sport.
Bohl is committed to hiring someone who will knock the socks off the Kansas faithful grown weary of a succession of obscure hirees who were foisted upon them because they had been successful on a lower plane and, more important, came cheap.
Meanwhile, the Jayhawks have to play out the string. Unmercifully, Saturday wasn’t the season home finale, even though it was billed as Senior Day. Kansas still has to play Wyoming next week.
“The seniors have to set an example for the younger players and beat Wyoming,” senior cornerback Andrew Davison said. “Next year won’t be such a monstrous schedule, either.”
Kansas did have the most difficult schedule in the nation, at least according to the NCAA, and on paper really had no hope of compiling a record better than 5-6. But now they’re sitting with a 2-8 record and will no doubt have a difficult time getting their game faces on for Wyoming, also 2-8.
Hey, maybe they’ll dub it The 2-8 Bowl.
Still, here’s hoping they’ll strap ’em on for Tom “Good Soldier” Hayes. He deserves to go out of here a winner.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoBack in the mid-1960s, following a particularly galling Kansas University football performance, head coach Jack Mitchell complained to the media that his players had played so poorly they had disgraced their pioneer forefathers.
I don’t know why, but I kept waiting for interim KU coach Tom Hayes to deliver a similar sermon to the media following Saturday’s particularly galling 49-7 loss to Iowa State.
Hayes obviously doesn’t operate that way, though.
Contemporary head coaches don’t reveal to the media what they tell their players at halftime or after the game or at practice or in private.
Hayes always puts on a mild-mannered front, yet I can’t imagine him not raising his voice several decibels in the locker room with the Jayhawks trailing 28-0 at halftime. Hayes must have reamed his players good. At least I hope he did, because they deserved it.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoIn fact, the Jayhawks just flat-out quit in the second quarter. Or as Hayes euphemized in even tones: “I didn’t think we hung in there. I don’t think we stood up, and I told them that at halftime.”
This is a Kansas football team that has basically been in the tank since it dropped that heart-breaking 38-34 decision to Missouri on Oct. 20 at Memorial Stadium. If the Jayhawks had won that game, they would have had a 3-3 record. Instead, they were 2-4 and faced the pitiless gantlet of successive games against Kansas State, Nebraska and Texas.
They were waxed in Manhattan, 40-6, and that defeat cost coach Terry Allen his job, although he wasn’t officially fired until the Sunday after the 51-7 flogging here by Nebraska. Last week the Jayhawks played for the first time with Hayes as interim head coach and were trashed by Texas, 59-0.
After that game, I wrote the Jayhawks were putrid and took some heat for using such a pungently negative word. Well, they were putrid and I’ll go a step farther and say they were just as putrid in the first half on Saturday against the Cyclones.
However, in the second half of the ISU game, the Jayhawks woke up no doubt spurred in part by Hayes’ halftime harangue and actually outgained Iowa State. But then, of course, it was too late.
I have nothing but admiration for Hayes. Thrust into the thankless job of coaching a team stripped of incentives, he has maintained a stiff upper lip while being outscored 118-7, uttering strings of positive statements, like “We have good kids in the program, and I want to keep helping them.”
Hayes is a good soldier who may yet become a general, but it won’t be at Kansas University unless you believe the rhetoric from athletics director Al Bohl that Hayes will be considered for the head job. Yeah, right and I’m Harry Potter, and KU will make Quidditch a varsity sport.
Bohl is committed to hiring someone who will knock the socks off the Kansas faithful grown weary of a succession of obscure hirees who were foisted upon them because they had been successful on a lower plane and, more important, came cheap.
Meanwhile, the Jayhawks have to play out the string. Unmercifully, Saturday wasn’t the season home finale, even though it was billed as Senior Day. Kansas still has to play Wyoming next week.
“The seniors have to set an example for the younger players and beat Wyoming,” senior cornerback Andrew Davison said. “Next year won’t be such a monstrous schedule, either.”
Kansas did have the most difficult schedule in the nation, at least according to the NCAA, and on paper really had no hope of compiling a record better than 5-6. But now they’re sitting with a 2-8 record and will no doubt have a difficult time getting their game faces on for Wyoming, also 2-8.
Hey, maybe they’ll dub it The 2-8 Bowl.
Still, here’s hoping they’ll strap ’em on for Tom “Good Soldier” Hayes. He deserves to go out of here a winner.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoBack in the mid-1960s, following a particularly galling Kansas University football performance, head coach Jack Mitchell complained to the media that his players had played so poorly they had disgraced their pioneer forefathers.
I don’t know why, but I kept waiting for interim KU coach Tom Hayes to deliver a similar sermon to the media following Saturday’s particularly galling 49-7 loss to Iowa State.
Hayes obviously doesn’t operate that way, though.
Contemporary head coaches don’t reveal to the media what they tell their players at halftime or after the game or at practice or in private.
Hayes always puts on a mild-mannered front, yet I can’t imagine him not raising his voice several decibels in the locker room with the Jayhawks trailing 28-0 at halftime. Hayes must have reamed his players good. At least I hope he did, because they deserved it.
Thad Allender/Journal-World PhotoIn fact, the Jayhawks just flat-out quit in the second quarter. Or as Hayes euphemized in even tones: “I didn’t think we hung in there. I don’t think we stood up, and I told them that at halftime.”
This is a Kansas football team that has basically been in the tank since it dropped that heart-breaking 38-34 decision to Missouri on Oct. 20 at Memorial Stadium. If the Jayhawks had won that game, they would have had a 3-3 record. Instead, they were 2-4 and faced the pitiless gantlet of successive games against Kansas State, Nebraska and Texas.
They were waxed in Manhattan, 40-6, and that defeat cost coach Terry Allen his job, although he wasn’t officially fired until the Sunday after the 51-7 flogging here by Nebraska. Last week the Jayhawks played for the first time with Hayes as interim head coach and were trashed by Texas, 59-0.
After that game, I wrote the Jayhawks were putrid and took some heat for using such a pungently negative word. Well, they were putrid and I’ll go a step farther and say they were just as putrid in the first half on Saturday against the Cyclones.
However, in the second half of the ISU game, the Jayhawks woke up no doubt spurred in part by Hayes’ halftime harangue and actually outgained Iowa State. But then, of course, it was too late.
I have nothing but admiration for Hayes. Thrust into the thankless job of coaching a team stripped of incentives, he has maintained a stiff upper lip while being outscored 118-7, uttering strings of positive statements, like “We have good kids in the program, and I want to keep helping them.”
Hayes is a good soldier who may yet become a general, but it won’t be at Kansas University unless you believe the rhetoric from athletics director Al Bohl that Hayes will be considered for the head job. Yeah, right and I’m Harry Potter, and KU will make Quidditch a varsity sport.
Bohl is committed to hiring someone who will knock the socks off the Kansas faithful grown weary of a succession of obscure hirees who were foisted upon them because they had been successful on a lower plane and, more important, came cheap.
Meanwhile, the Jayhawks have to play out the string. Unmercifully, Saturday wasn’t the season home finale, even though it was billed as Senior Day. Kansas still has to play Wyoming next week.
“The seniors have to set an example for the younger players and beat Wyoming,” senior cornerback Andrew Davison said. “Next year won’t be such a monstrous schedule, either.”
Kansas did have the most difficult schedule in the nation, at least according to the NCAA, and on paper really had no hope of compiling a record better than 5-6. But now they’re sitting with a 2-8 record and will no doubt have a difficult time getting their game faces on for Wyoming, also 2-8.
Hey, maybe they’ll dub it The 2-8 Bowl.
Still, here’s hoping they’ll strap ’em on for Tom “Good Soldier” Hayes. He deserves to go out of here a winner.
