The bad news will be if Kansas University’s football squad winds up in a less-than-primetime bowl game and gets whipped. But there’ll still be good news: That the Jayhawks wound up with a victory in their final home game witnessed by a load of their most appreciate fans.
The glow from that latter achievement will make the winter a lot shorter and warmer, no matter the postseason results. Mark Mangino’s crew had lost four straight games and had reason to doubt it could subdue even Iowa State.
Bill Whittemore was resurrected from the infirmary and triggered a 36-7 romp that left many feeling mighty good after that 2-10 season of a year ago.
Players, coaches and fans got to celebrate, the players made it a point to thank their backers and Mangino had the chance to anticipate continued improvement. KU isn’t out of the woods, but it can see through the trees to a clearing that might lead to real daylight.
Even with Whittemore and all the lads in peak condition, a North Carolina State or Houston can leave KU with a 6-7 rather than 7-6 record. But such a defeat at least would occur away from home, where the Jayhawks engendered such warmth a week ago.
Lower-tiered bowl games don’t have major payouts, but coaches love what they can do for a program. One former KU coach put it this way: “All bowl games are like beautiful women; some are just better than others.”
Recruiting is helped. Kids may not be sure where you went, but the fact you went somewhere impresses them. The people who sponsor such events always make sure it’s a good experience.
Then there’s what most coaches consider the very best aspect of a bowl game: It lets them keep their teams together four or five weeks longer for legal training sessions that can pay dividends the following fall.
The Big Eight bowl mentality was firmly established by Nebraska’s Bob Devaney in 1962, when conference teams were no longer stuck with the Orange Bowl-or-nothing policy. Devaney’s first Husker team posted an 8-2 season record and chose to go to the New York Gotham Bowl to play Miami.
The televised game was played in bitter cold Dec. 15 in Yankee Stadium and the crowd was only 6,166. Devaney had inherited Bill Jennings recruits like Willie Ross, Bob Brown, Mike Eger and Thunder Thornton and came home with a 36-34 victory and 9-2 season mark. Asked why in the world he would accept a low-level bowl game like that, Devaney replied: “It gave us three more weeks of practice to get ready for 1963.”
Came 1963 and Nebraska lost only to Air Force, beat Auburn in the Orange Bowl, finished 10-1 and was ranked No. 5 nationally. Devaney parlayed a long string of bowl games and extra practice sessions into 1970 and 1971 national titles and won eight league titles in 11 years.
The trend was set: You grab whatever bowl game you can get and take full advantage of the extra practice time with your club. KU’s Mangino will gladly embrace all the legal tutorial time he and his staff can get.
l Maybe in March that Kansas basketball victory over Michigan State won’t mean much, but I bet it does. And I’ll bet both clubs will be as much as 50 percent better by then and could meet in another high-profile clash.
Best thing was that Kansas stared the hard-hat Spartans eye-to-eye and dealt as many lumps as it took. Coach Bill Self loved the fact his club learned the value of playing gutsy, clang-and-bang ball and found what it takes to match up with the big boys. And Michigan State is a big boy.
Now, Bill said, he has to keep his Jayhawks playing fiercely while refining their techniques and running the system the way it should be. Nobody has a better frontliner than a hale and hearty Wayne Simien, and nobody has a better quarterback with more skills than Aaron Miles.
Unhurt, Simien will be better by March than Nick Collison was, and that’s saying a bunch. Further, Wayne can shoot better, especially free throws. I don’t think we’ve begun to see the offensive force Miles can be once he can pull up inside the arc and pop some 10 and 15-footers. He was unfairly pushed aside by the hype of Texas’s T.J. Ford. He’s no longer in the shadows.
KU has weapons galore, many of which we didn’t see in that muscular train wreck against Michigan State. Keith Langford will be there, J.R. Giddens is coming, Jeff Graves may finally have caught the fever and David Padgett can be awesome. Mike Lee has attitude and there are others in the supporting cast.
KU’s season wouldn’t have been stifled with a loss to Michigan State, but it sure got a boost. Just pray for no injuries. Without ailments, does anyone else smell another Final Four?
l Electronic bosses are trying desperately to weave women into the broadcasting mix. Too often they go for hair, clothes, boobs and buns rather than talent and expertise. Then they get somebody really good like Pam Ward, who knows sports, does her homework and has a terrific delivery like tennis’s Mary Carrillo, and they can’t handle it.
Listen to Pam on one of her play-by-play broadcasts; you get frustrated. She comes through when things are quiet, but when crowd noise and such rise, her smooth verbal offerings are lost, like Christopher Cross and Wynonna Judd mumbling musical lyrics. Seems as good as Pam Ward is, the technicians could find frequencies to project her voice more clearly. Too often women’s broadcast remarks get muffled.
