What's happened to Kansas football?

[K2C Sooner]

I'll give you that it's a very hard place to recruit the top recruits, but I see no reason why they couldn't match a program like Boise State, that has the same problem. I know they are a basketball school first, same as Duke, and they have turned into a respectable football school over the recent years. Don't give the small state with two major programs. Oklahoma has two and a mid major that succeed. I don't buy that they are to far from a major recruiting state(Texas) because air flight is not much different from Stillwater to Manhatten from Texas.

Maybe it's attitude, facilities or ? That's why I'm asking. This program is along way away from the day's of Nolan Cromwell and Mark Mangino.

 

[Section22Sooner]

Basketball is king in Lawrence. The KU alums I've known over the years won't talk FB.

 

[K2C Sooner]

Basketball is king in Lawrence. The KU alums I've known over the years won't talk FB.

Same thing for Duke, yet they have improved.

 

[SoonerBorn_LionBred]

The fired the best FB coach they had in my lifetime... #manginocurse

 

[Oklabama]

K2C, if you were a D1 recruit, how much interest would you have in going to Kansas? Think about it, and perhaps you can find your answer. I think it's because the program sucks, can't hire and keep a decent coach, and can't get enough quality recruits. Duke is a great school and not in Kansas.

 

[K2C Sooner]

K2C, if you were a D1 recruit, how much interest would you have in going to Kansas? Think about it, and perhaps you can find your answer. I think it's because the program sucks, can't hire and keep a decent coach, and can't get enough quality recruits. Duke is a great school and not in Kansas.

Yet they get division 1 basketball players by the boatload. I'm not asking them to be a powerhouse in football, just put some effort into the football program.

I would still be interested in hearing about facilities and stadium upgrades. I think a few posters are going to the game. Maybe they can tell us next week...

 

[soonerdave]

K2C, if you were a D1 recruit, how much interest would you have in going to Kansas? Think about it, and perhaps you can find your answer. I think it's because the program sucks, can't hire and keep a decent coach, and can't get enough quality recruits. Duke is a great school and not in Kansas.

There is not one single thing KU cannot get that OU and others have in order to BUILD a power football program, and I don't buy the insinuation that successful college football and basketball programs cannot co-exist. OU DID IT DURING Tubbs' reign, and there really is no scheduling overlap, so it really gets down to ego. And I can almost assure anyone that KU fans wouldn't care. They love sports.

Alumni/donors/money - check
Nice campus - check
Location for recruiting - check
Student and non-student sports fans - check
Academics - check.....solid

 

[Okie70]

It's simple. KU never found a Bill Snyder. My first college football game was OSU (then A&M) vs. KU at Stillwater. In 1954. OSU won by 5 TDS. KU players bawling after the game. Despite occasional short term luck in coaches (Pepper Rogers in late 60s, good coach in the mid 90's, Mangino) KU is hopeless as a football program. BB makes more money.

 

[SoonerTulsan]

Gale Sayers graduated??

 

[MdSooner#1]

Gale Sayers graduated??

John Riggins and Nolan Cromwell as well!

 

[bcsoonerfan]

Mark Mangino ate their soul.

 

[soonerdave]

It's simple. KU never found a Bill Snyder. My first college football game was OSU (then A&M) vs. KU at Stillwater. In 1954. OSU won by 5 TDS. KU players bawling after the game. Despite occasional short term luck in coaches (Pepper Rogers in late 60s, good coach in the mid 90's, Mangino) KU is hopeless as a football program. BB makes more money.

But that gets back to some of the points I mentioned earlier. Why wouldn't many top coaches want a scenario like that, provided of course they could get funding commitments for the facilities, etc.? And yes, BB does make money, but who says football can't also do the same? Everyone wants to say it's hopeless, it can't be done, blah, blah, blah. Guess what, and I'll use your Snyder example as my example, K State said the same thing, and they didn't even really have basketball as a fallback sport. Stop telling me it's hopeless, and tell me WHY successful football and basketball programs cannot co-exist at Kansas.

 

[humblesooner]

Good coaches are a crap shoot (Gibbs, Schnellenburger, Blake) even at major football factories. In addition to the OU lineage I show, think Bama before Saban, Michigan before Harbaugh, Florida, USC, etc.
Once you find a good coach (Mangino coached KU in the ORANGE BOWL - BCS bowl), you don't run him off because somebody doesn't like the way he chewed out a player.
If you will do that to the best coach you have had in years, why would any coach who even begins to seem to be an up-and-comer even consider interviewing?

 

[soonerdave]

Good coaches are a crap shoot (Gibbs, Schnellenburger, Blake) even at major football factories. In addition to the OU lineage I show, think Bama before Saban, Michigan before Harbaugh, Florida, USC, etc.
Once you find a good coach (Mangino coached KU in the ORANGE BOWL - BCS bowl), you don't run him off because somebody doesn't like the way he chewed out a player.
If you will do that to the best coach you have had in years, why would any coach who even begins to seem to be an up-and-comer even consider interviewing?

They could recruit and get any number of good coaches, including Fuente, and yes, even Mack Brown. Which gets to my original question: why can't successful football and basketball programs co-exist at Kansas? I think I brought out some valid reasons why football CAN be highly successful, so I guess based on your valid comment, the answer is this: It CAN be a highly successful co-existence, and very easily; it's just that the suits don't WANT that co-existence.

 

[Plainosooner]

Some of the problem is similar to OU. Instate high schol talent is woefully lacking. And it is harder for KU when KState has Snyder. There are typically less than 20 high school players in Kansas who get D1 offer. That includes lower tier schools. Some years,, that is less than a dozen.

Kansas has always had to look elsewhere. They were really good in part of the 60s. Their best player ever was likely Gale Sayers. He was from Omaha and recruited just before Bob Devaney turn Nebraska into a national power.

They got lucky with a couple of brothers who played at a small instate school. I believe that Junior and John Riggins played 8 man football. 30 years later, Glen Mason made KU football better than decent. But Kansas lost him in really a lateral move. OU being down in the 90s helped them with that. Bob Stoops is bad for KU football.

I also think that Mangino was double trouble. He was abusive to players when he was at OU. Likely was before, and certainly was after. But he split the few money people at Kansas who care about football. Some thought that brow beating players was part of the job description for most football coaches.

Some thought he was an embarrassment when all that became public. I suspect that most KU fans are perfectly happy to be a top five national basketball program and while they love it when football is good too, it is not a passion.

When you lose games to DII schools, it can get hard to recriut. There is one other factor. In football, KU is a stepping stone school. A lot of factors make that unlikely to change. So even if they find someone who could make them a winner, he would be unlikely to stay. The irony is that Mangino was maybe one who would have.

They have paid good money for the guys after Mark, who seemed to be good hires. They were not ... at least not in Lawrence. Charlie has Super Bowl rings and the good wishes of Tom Brady. Turner Gill was on lot of search lists with a high school background in Texas, a Nebraska pedigree and a good record at a place that had not won much before him.

They could not win there. Once you become an annual last place team, it takes somebody pretty special to turn that around.