Saturday’s match-up between 1-0 Kansas and 2-0 Duke no doubt would grab much more attention if it were played in Allen Fieldhouse or Cameroon Indoor Stadium instead of outside on the turf at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, North Carolina.
Let’s face it: Duke and Kansas are both basketball schools and there’s not a person on the planet who doesn’t think that.
That includes KU football coach Charlie Weis, who, on Tuesday, talked about the challenges — and advantages — of coaching the football team, which, in many opinions and at most schools is the king of college athletics, at a school where basketball rules.
> “I don’t know what (Duke coach) David
> (Cutcliffe) thinks,” Weis said. “He’s
> got Coach K and I’ve got Bill Self.
> Does it get any better than that? I
> mean, you’re talking about arguably
> the two best, two of the best coaches
> in America. So from my standpoint, I
> hope basketball wins every game every
> year regardless of how we do. I
> appreciate the support I get from
> Coach Self and our basketball team,
> but most importantly, I can utilize
> their success to help use that as
> something to shoot for and definitely
> use as a recruiting tool.
Weis continued….
> “You can do one of two things: You can
> feel like a second?class citizen or
> you can play into it, and I totally
> play into it. Totally. I don’t look at
> it like that at all. I’m more than
> content with our basketball team
> competing for a national championship
> every year. I just want to get our
> team to where we’re winning more than
> we’re losing on an annual basis.
> That’s what I want to do. I want to be
> winning more than we’re losing on an
> annual basis. When we get to that
> point, you can ship me out of here. I
> don’t want to do it once. I want to
> make sure we’ve got that set. Once we
> get that set, you can pack me up and
> send me out if that’s what you want to
> do.”
That last part was said with no bitterness or poor-me mentality. It merely was Weis re-emphasizing what he came to Kansas to accomplish, which was to get the KU football program to the point where it’s considered a perennial winner.
The general rule of thumb used to be that new coaches would — or at least should — get five years to make that happen. Weis’ contract with Kansas was for five years. And although he just started Year 3, he pointed to Cutcliffe’s path at Duke as proof positive that, if given time, such a transformation is possible — even at a basketball school like Duke or Kansas.
> “I know that Years 3 and 4 they won
> three games,” Weis said of Cutcliffe
> at Duke. “So was he lighting the world
> on fire at that time? I mean, what he
> did was he put in a plan, he
> recruited, recruited, recruited, got
> guys he can get into Duke, which is
> not the easiest thing to do, OK, stuck
> to the plan, had support from the
> administration, OK, didn’t waver. When
> people were saying, well, where is
> this heading, and all of a sudden Year
> 6 they go and win 10. That’s the way
> it happens a lot of times when you
> walk into a program that just hasn’t
> done too well recently. I have a lot
> of respect for the job they’ve done,
> and hopefully we cannot only emulate
> that, but hopefully we can speed up
> that timetable just a tad.”
KU and Duke will square off, in football, at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Duke’s home stadium.
