Osborne offers support for Turner Gill

By Matt Tait     Oct 29, 2010

The message boards may be going nuts. Fans may be questioning Kansas University football coach Turner Gill’s ability to get the job done.

But we learned Friday that Gill has an ally in the form of an old friend.

Former Nebraska University football coach Tom Osborne, the man who coached Gill in the 1980s and instilled so much of his beliefs into the first-year KU coach opened up to The Des Moines Register about his recent conversations with Gill.

After turning around the University of Buffalo football program in just four years, Gill has gotten off to a rough start at Kansas. His Jayhawks are just 2-5 overall and that includes a three-game losing streak that has been among the worst in school history.

In three consecutive games, the Jayhawks were outscored, 159-24, by Baylor, Kansas State and Texas A&M.

The Jayhawks play at Iowa State (4-4) on Saturday, where Gill will employ the services of juco transfer Quinn Mecham to be his starting quarterback, as starter Jordan Webb and backup QB Kale Pick are both out with injuries.

The game will not be televised, marking the first contest in 23 games to suffer such a fate.

For all the gameday action including, photos, updates from Ames, Iowa and analysis and reaction, log on to KUsports.com on Saturday.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.