Not a positive outlook
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@Texas-Hawk-10 True, but maybe the roster would have more than 5 D1 calibre players. At least a full allotment of scholarship players would be nice.
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@Texas Hawk 10: Yes, Malzahn would already have left, but the difference would have been that in that one year, some improvements could have been implemented; One of Malzahn’s coordinators could have been offered the job, and KU might already be into the third year of a successful rebuild. At this point, we have to hope that Beaty has what it takes. If the players, however few, are disciplined and coached in the fundamentals, we will see the beginnings of optimism. Mangino’s first year was terrible, but the second year was 6-6 and a loss in their bowl game. Nevertheless, the “sawing wood” approach to the fundamentals gave fans a reason to come out to the games. Here’s hoping Beaty can start there. I don’t know that I will worry so much about SZ. If Beaty is successful, Zenger may get credit for the hire, but I think he was really only a figurehead in the hire. Donor alums weren’t going to allow him to Weis it up again.
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@wissoxfan83 Im with you dude. Football is just a distraction for me until the first KU tip off.
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@Lulufulu I actually really love football, but talk about a lesson in humility…
KU hoops will always be my first love, but I would so love for someone to turn this team around and make KU football respectable.
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A positive outlook. http://www.rockchalktalk.com/2015/9/4/9260985/predicting-kansas-footballs-2015-record
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@Kcmatt7 Wow, that is a positive outlook!
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@nuleafjhawk you watching? I’m
for positives. I’ll still watch every game
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@wissoxfan83 Aaaaand the KU football season is over.
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@Lulufulu I just turned it off. Big comeback, then pffffftt.
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@wissoxfan83 Yeah, I saw that on the espn feed. KU down by 3 with 2 min left. Almost but not quite. Oh well, late nights in what, 5 weeks?
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Would have been fun to see them at least get the kick attempt off at the end. Heartbreaker. It’ll be a while before I get over it.
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OK, I’m over it.
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I just read we fumbled a spike attempt? You can’t make this stuff up.
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@Crimsonorblue22 I did watch.
But let me tell you this - last Saturday we were at the lake and were catching a lot of nice fish. Among them was about a 5 lb catfish that my son caught. I happened to be nearest the fish when he got it to the boat and I grabbed it and brought it on board. At one point the fish squirmed rather vigorously and shook the hook. Right into my thumb. DEEP. After fifteen minutes of (literal) blood, sweat and …real close to tears, we got the hook cut out with surprisingly minimal damage.
Last Saturday was much more enjoyable than this Saturday for me.
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@wissoxfan83 Cozart tried spiking the ball before it ever got to his hands and he was on his knees when he recovered the fumble so the clock ran out.
Cozart also had two other mistakes that were at least a 17 point swing and probably a 21 point swing. On KU’s first possession, KU ran a bubble screen in the red zone and Cozart telegraphed it to a waiting DB who almost took it to the house. At least a 10 point swing and probably a 14 point swing there. Then, in the second quarter when it was 24-7, Cozart took off on a scramble and like a lot of QB’s, he didn’t tuck the ball when he was about to get hit and the ball got popped out and 2 plays later, it was 31-7.
While there’s definitely others that share in the blame (defense), those 3 plays by Cozart had the most direct impact on the outcome of the game in my eyes.
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@nuleafjhawk ewwwww! Sorry! See any positives?
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You guys wanna see something funny?
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@MoonwalkMafia funny? Can’t imagine a paid employee would get away w/this. Anxious to hear what big 12 says!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Ya know, I couldn’t help but think the same thing. It’s incredible to me that people in administrative positions at K-State can give stuff like this a thumbs up without thinking about what common perception will be.
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And this is after KSU students had to sign a sportsmanship pledge before getting their student tickets. No profane chants. I guess the Octagon of dumb will be silent this year. What a bunch of bozos.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Oh yes! Lots of positives - we have a freezer full of fish!!
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@Crimsonorblue22 OK, smart aleckness aside, No. I did not see any positives. Unless you’re in a track meet, you should never get beaten by a team called the JACKRABBITS.
If we had played an FBS school and had the same exact outcome, I would have said “Yes, I do see some positives”. If you look at the stats, I think a lot of people would have said that KU won that game. But, in almost any game, anywhere, whoever has the least turnovers and fewest penalties wins.
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@nuleafjhawk oh smart one!!
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What boggles my mind is how could a program be ruined in such a short duration? It’s as if it was intentionally sabotaged.
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@Khubar_Jayhawk I wouldn’t call it intentional. Part of it was the fact that they brought in coaches with completely different philosophies each time. We went from a balanced spread attack (Mangino) to ground and pound (Gill) to a pro style (Charlie) and now back to an Air Raid/spread. So, each coach has now had the wrong personnel for their system.
Gill made it a point to bring in RBs. and pound it. But, he didn’t utilize the current strengths on the roster. We had smaller linemen that could move. And we tried to make them be big maulers. It doesn’t work.
Then Charlie took over the team. We he was stuck with these half-assed recruiting classes focused on ground and pound. What do you do with that when you run a pro style offense? He tried the easy fix and went the JUCO route. That was his biggest mistake. He was just arrogant enough to think he could actually turn the program around by getting D1 leftovers, idiots and screwups. Let’s be honest, if you are going D1 out of JUCO, something is wrong with you. Either you are lacking intellect, not good enough to actually be D1, or you are of questionable character. A few of those players can be ok on a team. But, 20-30 of them is a cancer.
And finally we are now at a gunslinging air raid offense. But, this time we barely have enough scholarship players to scrimmage. Beatty has no chance in his first 4 years to put a decent product on the field. He needs time and patience from us to actually get a decent product on the field. Once he gets the personnel he needs, this team will begin turning around.
I did see some positives on Saturday! We scored 38 points. Even with terrible penalties and turnovers. That is positive. We have a QB that is playing that is not at all made for this offense. Air raid is meant to have the ball out within 1.5-2 seconds. This essentially is your run game. Then, there is a second part of the air raid. It consists of double moves and confusing route combinations for deep plays for big yardage. But, this takes a smart QB with some arm talent because the offense rides on him almost entirely. Cozart is clearly not the guy for this system. But, when we get a QB who is, look out!
Also, I saw positives on D. While we sucked it up in the first quarter, Our offense didn’t help. The D was on the field the entire quarter. That means no time for adjustments. No break. No stopping the onslaught that was happening. After we got to adjust at the end of the quarter we shut them down for a good while. That showed the ability to make adjustments mid-game which is positive when we look at the coaches. We have a good staff. We just need to give them some time!
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I agree that we have switched styles too much, but if you look back at Gill, his first recruiting class was heavy on three things - athletic defensive players, RBs and huge OLs. Gill signed several big offensive linemen in his first full class. He was going out and getting what he needed to run the style he wanted. But by firing him after his second season we were halfway through turning over the roster.
Once Weis ran off a bunch of Gill recruits and went Juco and couldn’t keep guys, you end up here - 60 scholarship players.
Gill was trying to build something long term. He recruited almost all HS players. Weis was going for the quick fix to set up a jump back to the NFL. He went almost exclusively juco. We would have been better off to just keep Gill for a couple more years than to have hired Weis.
I just hope that with Beaty there is more patience. The only way to succeed is to recruit HS talent and build up the program from within. There were people that were calling for Gill’s head after his first loss to an FCS team. Gill doubled down on that by taking the redshirt off James Sims, when Sims should have been held off until the next season when the team was stronger overall.
But by rushing to improve, KU wasted a lot of the freshman talent that was brought in, and then when the change occurred, there was no foundation. Hope they give Beaty time. He needs three full recruiting classes just to get numbers back where they should be.
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@justanotherfan what about gills reputation for lacking discipline? I’m talking in the classrom(maybe not being in the classroom)
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Tough to say. He was at KU so briefly, and spent much of that time with speculation that he would be fired. Even if he was strong with discipline, it’s hard to imagine how he would have been effective since there were prominent alums lining up to buy out his contract half way through his first season.
Maybe he was too soft and would not have worked out regardless. But the speculation that he would be fired undercuts any potential for him to be effective as an enforcer. I’m not saying Gill did a good job at all. Just that keeping him probably would have been better than bringing in Weis for two years because we at least would have a full team of scholarship players. Beaty takes over a program in much worse shape than the one that Gill left.
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@justanotherfan agree! I felt Mangino coached his last season “under the gun” too.
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@justanotherfan Yea exactly what I was saying.
We could quite literally have the worst job in college football. The only way to get out of it is to simply be patient.
The athletics department needs to remember something though. A program is like growing a plant. Sometimes you get enough rain every few years and it’ll grow a few flowers. But the only way to ensure a healthy plant is to make sure it is watered every single day. And our football program hasn’t gotten anything new in 7 years (Anderson complex). In order to compete in recruiting we need to have SOMETHING to sell besides playing time. Nothing about the Anderson Complex except the weight room screams luxury. The dorms are just meh. And the dorms are literally on the other side of campus. Something needs to be done to help out our coaches.
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@justanotherfan said:
I’m not saying Gill did a good job at all. Just that keeping him probably would have been better than bringing in Weis for two years because we at least would have a full team of scholarship players. Beaty takes over a program in much worse shape than the one that Gill left.
This is has pretty much been my thinking on Gill over Weis. Gill at least made it a point to recruit HS kids instead of going for the quick fix so KU wouldn’t be a full recruiting class behind needing 3 years to catch up on roster numbers. The W-L for KU is probably comparable, but who knows what would’ve happened with Seth Russell running the show for KU.
@Kcmatt7 The money has come first and even then it won’t be an overnight process. Baylor, Oklahoma St., and Oregon all started pouring money into their football programs before there was significant improvements on the field. Zenger has a background in fundraising and he needs to get the high dollar donors to start investing in football ahead of any significant on field progress. Tell them their name (or company name) will be on the field opposite the Big 12 logos in exchange for funding the renovations to the stadium.
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I have said for years and will continue to say, the road to KU football success has three major keys.
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Own the Kansas City recruiting circuit. KU must dominate this area. It is the only recruiting area where KU can even imagine an advantage due to proximity, so KU must dominate this area, from Blue Springs on the east to Basehor on the west, from Liberty up north to Gardner on the south. There is enough talent that comes from KC each year to grab a handful of recruits. Not a full class, but a solid group.
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Re-start the Arrowhead game with Missouri to produce a national profile. KU football needs to be on national tv, in a marquee game every year. That can be the Mizzou game. The silly “they destroyed the history” crap needs to end and this needs to get done. Also, that game is probably worth $1m each year.
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Find an identity and stick with it. I don’t know what Beaty’s long term plan is yet, but whatever it is, he deserves five years to see it through. KU hasn’t stuck with a plan long enough for anything to work in the last half decade, and that leaves us here, with 60 scholarship players and one of the worst 10 programs in D1.
If KU does those things, they can become a solid 8 win team year in and year out, with a chance to win 10 or 11 games sometimes.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 after SZ hired Weis don’t you think donors are leary of giving money while he’s here?
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@Crimsonorblue22 Donors are allowed to say what the money is to be used for and if the donations aren’t used in the way they’re earmarked for, donors can get their money back.
So you could donate $10 to the KUAD and earmark it for stadium renovations and they have to tell you what part of stadium renovations that money is used for or you can demand your money back.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 not exactly what I meant. After SZ’s bad, bad hire of Weis, I heard donors weren’t eager to be donating at all. I also heard that alumni had a huge say in Beaty’s hiring. They weren’t letting SZ repeat!
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KSU fans would walk in dog shyte, track it into your living room, and think it was funny. If you complain, they would say, “Your football team is terrible. Get over it!” Actually, here, they tracked the shyte onto their own carpet. They just don’t realize that fact.
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@EdwordL I love it!
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Anyone else see no. 6 Auburn’s close call with FCS Jacksonville State? Seeing that actually made me feel a little bit better about our close loss to SDSU.
