In addition to being one of the worst offensive performances by a Kansas University football team in a couple of decades, last week’s 20-3 loss to Nebraska put an end to the Jayhawks’ hopes of qualifying for a bowl game during head coach Turner Gill’s first season.
At 3-7 overall and 1-5 in the Big 12, the best the Jayhawks can finish is 5-7, a mark that, even if they do achieve it, would put them one game shy of the six victories necessary to earn an invitation to a bowl.
For several programs throughout the country, the end of bowl-eligibility one week signals a noticeable youth movement the next. Don’t throw Gill into that group just yet.
“We’ll discuss that a little bit, but we’re still gonna do whatever we can to win a football game,” said Gill, whose team will take on Oklahoma State at 11 a.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium. “Whether it’s young or whatever it is, we’re gonna find a way to try to win a game. I’m more interested in doing that than to sit here and say, ‘Well, because we’re not able to make a bowl game then we need to play this guy or that guy.’ I’m not at that point.”
Part of the reason Gill is steering clear of such a practice might be the fact that he has been forced to play a lineup filled with inexperience throughout the season.
When the Jayhawks were blown out in three consecutive conference games earlier this season, Gill was asked if he might start to work more youth into the regular rotation. His answer?
“We’re already young,” he said.
KU’s most recent depth chart featured 13 players who have been first-time starters this season. That includes five sophomores and two freshman and doesn’t include a few others, such as red-shirt freshman quarterback Jordan Webb, who have started at some point this season.
Gill is not the only college football coach in the state who operates this way. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said he, too, prefers to reward players who work hard, even when qualifying for a bowl was out of the picture.
“My feeling was that, right or wrong, it probably (was) not a fair approach for the seniors in the program who had deserved the right to compete week in and week out,” Snyder said during Monday’s Big 12 coaches teleconference. “As long as they were maintaining their position and doing as well as they could, I certainly didn’t want to take that opportunity away from them. We probably practiced some of the younger players a little more significantly than we might have otherwise and certainly were cognizant of being able to utilize them in ball games if opportunities arose. But by and large we just didn’t want to divorce ourselves from our seniors.”
With 20 seniors on this year’s team, the bulk of KU’s roster will be back in 2011. So with no bowl on the horizon and just two weeks remaining in the season, the next 10-12 practices are just as important for those guys as they are for the younger players trying to get noticed.
