Al Bohl’s goal is a bowl. I know that because Bohl, Kansas University’s new athletics director, all but promised me a postseason appearance by the Jayhawks when he took the job last summer.
He just didn’t say when.
Kind of reminds me of several years ago when Howard Schnellenberger was head football coach at Louisville U. and uttered these immortal words: “We’re on a collision course with the national championship. It’s just a matter of time.”
That next crash you hear won’t be Louisville or Schnellenberger colliding with the national championship. Louisville has as much chance of winning the national title as, well, Kansas does.
Then again, Kansas does not have designs on the national football championship. KU has neither the resources, the tradition nor the commitment to grasp for that straw.
Kansas does want to be bowl-eligible, though, because bowls are good. Bowls make the students happy, they make the faculty happy, they make the alumni happy and, most important, they kick the national perception of the university up a notch.
Kansas, as you know, made a couple of bowl appearances in the ’90s. The Jayhawks played Brigham Young in 1992 and UCLA in 1995, both on Christmas Day in Honolulu. Everybody felt good about those halcyon days.
Trouble was, with the games played in Hawaii, there was little or no touchee-feelee for the students, alumni and faculty because of the budget-busting cost of four or five days in Hawaii. Only the rich and the famous could afford those junkets.
It’s been 20 years since a Kansas football team qualified for a bowl game on the mainland. That was the now-defunct Hall of Fame Bowl played on Dec. 31, 1981, in Birmingham, Ala.
I don’t need to tell you that bowl trip hardly captured the imagination of the Kansas football faithful, do I? Sure, it was cheap to travel to Birmingham heck, Alabama is even in the central time zone but that bowl might as well have been played in Bombay.
At the time, Birmingham fancied itself as a combination of Atlanta and New Orleans, a future Southern metropolis and a budding tourist mecca. Birmingham has since come to its senses losing the Hall of Fame Bowl no doubt helped and is now content to be Atlanta without the traffic and New Orleans without the crime.
Anyway, certainly no more than 5,000 KU fans followed the Jayhawks to Birmingham in part because it WAS Birmingham and because the ’81 Jayhawks relied mainly on defense to fashion an 8-3 record. Defense does win games, but offense sells tickets.
Those fans who did go to Birmingham were forced to sit in a cold early afternoon rain and watch Mississippi State blank the Jayhawks, 10-0. In other words, the Hall of Fame Bowl was not remembered fondly by those who were on hand.
Still, those folks could state they went to a Kansas bowl game, and nearly a generation has passed with only the well-heeled dozens who went to Honolulu able to make that statement.
Many of the people who attended KU bowl games in the 1970s the Liberty in ’73 and the Sun in ’75 are now grandparents. For instance, if you were a 21-year-old senior in ’73, you’ll be 50 on your next birthday.
Today the Kansas University sports fan is so attuned to men’s basketball during December no one really knows how he’ll react if excuse me, Al when Kansas becomes bowl-eligible again.
Is the KU sports fan so bowl-starved he’ll follow the Jayhawks wherever they’re sent or whenever they play? Or is a bowl trip now so foreign to the KU sports fan’s mind-set that he’d rather stay home and clean the furnace filter?
Bohl would love to have the answer to those questions as soon as possible. Until then, these bowl-less times try Bohl’s soul.
Al Bohl’s goal is a bowl. I know that because Bohl, Kansas University’s new athletics director, all but promised me a postseason appearance by the Jayhawks when he took the job last summer.
He just didn’t say when.
Kind of reminds me of several years ago when Howard Schnellenberger was head football coach at Louisville U. and uttered these immortal words: “We’re on a collision course with the national championship. It’s just a matter of time.”
That next crash you hear won’t be Louisville or Schnellenberger colliding with the national championship. Louisville has as much chance of winning the national title as, well, Kansas does.
Then again, Kansas does not have designs on the national football championship. KU has neither the resources, the tradition nor the commitment to grasp for that straw.
Kansas does want to be bowl-eligible, though, because bowls are good. Bowls make the students happy, they make the faculty happy, they make the alumni happy and, most important, they kick the national perception of the university up a notch.
Kansas, as you know, made a couple of bowl appearances in the ’90s. The Jayhawks played Brigham Young in 1992 and UCLA in 1995, both on Christmas Day in Honolulu. Everybody felt good about those halcyon days.
Trouble was, with the games played in Hawaii, there was little or no touchee-feelee for the students, alumni and faculty because of the budget-busting cost of four or five days in Hawaii. Only the rich and the famous could afford those junkets.
It’s been 20 years since a Kansas football team qualified for a bowl game on the mainland. That was the now-defunct Hall of Fame Bowl played on Dec. 31, 1981, in Birmingham, Ala.
I don’t need to tell you that bowl trip hardly captured the imagination of the Kansas football faithful, do I? Sure, it was cheap to travel to Birmingham heck, Alabama is even in the central time zone but that bowl might as well have been played in Bombay.
At the time, Birmingham fancied itself as a combination of Atlanta and New Orleans, a future Southern metropolis and a budding tourist mecca. Birmingham has since come to its senses losing the Hall of Fame Bowl no doubt helped and is now content to be Atlanta without the traffic and New Orleans without the crime.
Anyway, certainly no more than 5,000 KU fans followed the Jayhawks to Birmingham in part because it WAS Birmingham and because the ’81 Jayhawks relied mainly on defense to fashion an 8-3 record. Defense does win games, but offense sells tickets.
Those fans who did go to Birmingham were forced to sit in a cold early afternoon rain and watch Mississippi State blank the Jayhawks, 10-0. In other words, the Hall of Fame Bowl was not remembered fondly by those who were on hand.
Still, those folks could state they went to a Kansas bowl game, and nearly a generation has passed with only the well-heeled dozens who went to Honolulu able to make that statement.
Many of the people who attended KU bowl games in the 1970s the Liberty in ’73 and the Sun in ’75 are now grandparents. For instance, if you were a 21-year-old senior in ’73, you’ll be 50 on your next birthday.
Today the Kansas University sports fan is so attuned to men’s basketball during December no one really knows how he’ll react if excuse me, Al when Kansas becomes bowl-eligible again.
Is the KU sports fan so bowl-starved he’ll follow the Jayhawks wherever they’re sent or whenever they play? Or is a bowl trip now so foreign to the KU sports fan’s mind-set that he’d rather stay home and clean the furnace filter?
Bohl would love to have the answer to those questions as soon as possible. Until then, these bowl-less times try Bohl’s soul.
Al Bohl’s goal is a bowl. I know that because Bohl, Kansas University’s new athletics director, all but promised me a postseason appearance by the Jayhawks when he took the job last summer.
He just didn’t say when.
Kind of reminds me of several years ago when Howard Schnellenberger was head football coach at Louisville U. and uttered these immortal words: “We’re on a collision course with the national championship. It’s just a matter of time.”
That next crash you hear won’t be Louisville or Schnellenberger colliding with the national championship. Louisville has as much chance of winning the national title as, well, Kansas does.
Then again, Kansas does not have designs on the national football championship. KU has neither the resources, the tradition nor the commitment to grasp for that straw.
Kansas does want to be bowl-eligible, though, because bowls are good. Bowls make the students happy, they make the faculty happy, they make the alumni happy and, most important, they kick the national perception of the university up a notch.
Kansas, as you know, made a couple of bowl appearances in the ’90s. The Jayhawks played Brigham Young in 1992 and UCLA in 1995, both on Christmas Day in Honolulu. Everybody felt good about those halcyon days.
Trouble was, with the games played in Hawaii, there was little or no touchee-feelee for the students, alumni and faculty because of the budget-busting cost of four or five days in Hawaii. Only the rich and the famous could afford those junkets.
It’s been 20 years since a Kansas football team qualified for a bowl game on the mainland. That was the now-defunct Hall of Fame Bowl played on Dec. 31, 1981, in Birmingham, Ala.
I don’t need to tell you that bowl trip hardly captured the imagination of the Kansas football faithful, do I? Sure, it was cheap to travel to Birmingham heck, Alabama is even in the central time zone but that bowl might as well have been played in Bombay.
At the time, Birmingham fancied itself as a combination of Atlanta and New Orleans, a future Southern metropolis and a budding tourist mecca. Birmingham has since come to its senses losing the Hall of Fame Bowl no doubt helped and is now content to be Atlanta without the traffic and New Orleans without the crime.
Anyway, certainly no more than 5,000 KU fans followed the Jayhawks to Birmingham in part because it WAS Birmingham and because the ’81 Jayhawks relied mainly on defense to fashion an 8-3 record. Defense does win games, but offense sells tickets.
Those fans who did go to Birmingham were forced to sit in a cold early afternoon rain and watch Mississippi State blank the Jayhawks, 10-0. In other words, the Hall of Fame Bowl was not remembered fondly by those who were on hand.
Still, those folks could state they went to a Kansas bowl game, and nearly a generation has passed with only the well-heeled dozens who went to Honolulu able to make that statement.
Many of the people who attended KU bowl games in the 1970s the Liberty in ’73 and the Sun in ’75 are now grandparents. For instance, if you were a 21-year-old senior in ’73, you’ll be 50 on your next birthday.
Today the Kansas University sports fan is so attuned to men’s basketball during December no one really knows how he’ll react if excuse me, Al when Kansas becomes bowl-eligible again.
Is the KU sports fan so bowl-starved he’ll follow the Jayhawks wherever they’re sent or whenever they play? Or is a bowl trip now so foreign to the KU sports fan’s mind-set that he’d rather stay home and clean the furnace filter?
Bohl would love to have the answer to those questions as soon as possible. Until then, these bowl-less times try Bohl’s soul.
Al Bohl’s goal is a bowl. I know that because Bohl, Kansas University’s new athletics director, all but promised me a postseason appearance by the Jayhawks when he took the job last summer.
He just didn’t say when.
Kind of reminds me of several years ago when Howard Schnellenberger was head football coach at Louisville U. and uttered these immortal words: “We’re on a collision course with the national championship. It’s just a matter of time.”
That next crash you hear won’t be Louisville or Schnellenberger colliding with the national championship. Louisville has as much chance of winning the national title as, well, Kansas does.
Then again, Kansas does not have designs on the national football championship. KU has neither the resources, the tradition nor the commitment to grasp for that straw.
Kansas does want to be bowl-eligible, though, because bowls are good. Bowls make the students happy, they make the faculty happy, they make the alumni happy and, most important, they kick the national perception of the university up a notch.
Kansas, as you know, made a couple of bowl appearances in the ’90s. The Jayhawks played Brigham Young in 1992 and UCLA in 1995, both on Christmas Day in Honolulu. Everybody felt good about those halcyon days.
Trouble was, with the games played in Hawaii, there was little or no touchee-feelee for the students, alumni and faculty because of the budget-busting cost of four or five days in Hawaii. Only the rich and the famous could afford those junkets.
It’s been 20 years since a Kansas football team qualified for a bowl game on the mainland. That was the now-defunct Hall of Fame Bowl played on Dec. 31, 1981, in Birmingham, Ala.
I don’t need to tell you that bowl trip hardly captured the imagination of the Kansas football faithful, do I? Sure, it was cheap to travel to Birmingham heck, Alabama is even in the central time zone but that bowl might as well have been played in Bombay.
At the time, Birmingham fancied itself as a combination of Atlanta and New Orleans, a future Southern metropolis and a budding tourist mecca. Birmingham has since come to its senses losing the Hall of Fame Bowl no doubt helped and is now content to be Atlanta without the traffic and New Orleans without the crime.
Anyway, certainly no more than 5,000 KU fans followed the Jayhawks to Birmingham in part because it WAS Birmingham and because the ’81 Jayhawks relied mainly on defense to fashion an 8-3 record. Defense does win games, but offense sells tickets.
Those fans who did go to Birmingham were forced to sit in a cold early afternoon rain and watch Mississippi State blank the Jayhawks, 10-0. In other words, the Hall of Fame Bowl was not remembered fondly by those who were on hand.
Still, those folks could state they went to a Kansas bowl game, and nearly a generation has passed with only the well-heeled dozens who went to Honolulu able to make that statement.
Many of the people who attended KU bowl games in the 1970s the Liberty in ’73 and the Sun in ’75 are now grandparents. For instance, if you were a 21-year-old senior in ’73, you’ll be 50 on your next birthday.
Today the Kansas University sports fan is so attuned to men’s basketball during December no one really knows how he’ll react if excuse me, Al when Kansas becomes bowl-eligible again.
Is the KU sports fan so bowl-starved he’ll follow the Jayhawks wherever they’re sent or whenever they play? Or is a bowl trip now so foreign to the KU sports fan’s mind-set that he’d rather stay home and clean the furnace filter?
Bohl would love to have the answer to those questions as soon as possible. Until then, these bowl-less times try Bohl’s soul.
