Kansas University announced Thursday night that Weis would pay for any KU students without tickets who are interested in attending Saturday’s 6 p.m. Senior Night game.
Anyone interested in taking Weis up on the offer will be asked to present a valid student ID and enter through the student entrance between 4-6 p.m. Seats will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
KU seniors recall ups, downs
KU seniors Toben Opurum and Bradley McDougald have played both sides of the ball and been through all kinds of ups and downs during their four years with KU’s football program.
As the two prepared to play the final home games of their careers at 6 p.m. Saturday against Iowa State at Memorial Stadium, they took time out to reflect on their paths that began as part of a team that featured Todd Reesing at quarterback and jumped to a 5-0 start and a top-20 national ranking in 2009 and went on to suffer 35 losses in their next 41 games heading into this weekend’s home finale.
“I would kind of give it like a V shape,” McDougald said when asked to describe his KU experience. “When I came here, we were on a good path, and then we dipped down and kind of fell off for a couple years, guys getting into trouble, guys not playing, guys not doing things as a true Jayhawk should. And now we get coach (Charlie) Weis in, and it’s going back up.”
If there’s one thing these guys regret, it’s that they won’t be around to watch what they believe will be KU’s climb back to relevance. Although they said they were proud of the progress the team had made this season, both admitted this group still had work to do to get where they want to go.
“I would say, getting there,” Opurum said. “We haven’t got the amount of wins that we would’ve liked to this year, but you watch the games and see the improvement, and you realize what guys are capable of. … It’s tough to be proud of the season because of the way it played out and the record that we have, but I’m proud of the way the guys have handled it.”
Academic All-Big 12 honorees
A league-best 19 Jayhawks earned first- or second-team academic All-Big 12 honors on Thursday, with senior center Trevor Marrongelli earning first-team honors for the fourth straight season.
Marrongelli becomes just the fourth KU football player all-time to achieve the feat four straight years. He and Oskaloosa senior Brandon Hawks were two of the three Big 12 football players to earn the nod with 4.0 grade-point averages.
Joining Hawks and Marrongelli on the first team were: Dylan Admire, Ryan Burton, Gavin Howard, Tyler Patmon, Justin Puthoff, James Sims and Shane Smith. Second-team honorees were: Michael Cummings, Blake Jablonski, Pat Lewandowski, Jake Love, Toben Opurum, Daymond Patterson, Corrigan Powell, JaCorey Shepherd, Nick Sizemore and Andrew Turzilli.
