Ask a Jayhawk

whether they like him or not the Jayhawks have seemingly bonded a bit over this Mangino business and some are playing for him, some in spite of him but despite the outcome the Jayhawks looked like a team motivated again vs. Texas.

During the losing streak from Colorado through maybe even Nebraska Kansas looked like a team that had just lost their desire to play football. Doesn’t look that way anymore. Against Texas they were just out manned but they didn’t quit.

If for some reason Mangino is gone by Saturday and Bowen is coaching, the players love the guy and I think the combination of a fresh start and Bowen as the interim could spell a highly motivated Jayhawk team as well.

Why I’d say Warriner is this…he really isn’t a whole lot different from Mangino from what I’ve been able to gather, and to make things worse I know for a fact that some on the offensive side of the ball have lost a little faith in his play calling.

He may be a decent choice in the offseason, but right now it would be the best chance that the Tigers face a Jayhawk team ready to get to the offseason.

I honestly don’t know. Watching the Texas game they did interview a BCS staff member who explained that beyond the #1 v #2 it’s all down to business decisions for the bowls. Who travels better, who brings in more sponsorship $$$ etc. I could see Kansas maybe getting picked over Iowa State but that’d be it.

Haven’t looked at other 6-6 teams but I also recall reading earlier this year that some conferences looked as though they were going to be short on bowl eligible teams so there is a chance Kansas could end up getting picked up by one of those as well.

All that said, we’ve been left out before. If we get one it won’t be a great one but it’d be a nice extra month of practice as we get ready to transition our skilled positions for next year.

-The offensive line is young. They’ve had great games(Nebraska)…but they’ve also had struggles(Tech) as any young group will. A few weeks back Mangino stepped over to coach the o-line and made some changes that have turned out to work very well. Mizzou has a good defensive front though and will definitely present a challenge, especially to the young left tackle.

-Reesing??? Has struggled this year and the reasons why don’t really make sense. Balls in the dirt, poor decisions and a multitude of turnovers setting up very VERY short drives by our opponents. Looked much better against Texas though.

-Lack of COMMITMENT to the run. I say lack of commitment because I believe this team can run the ball, but they have often abandoned it early because of deficits and they become one dimensional. Making us extremely predictable and a once potent offense easy to defend. Toben Opurum will be out this week so I don’t have a ton of hope that this changes.

-As far as the receivers they have been what was expected and I don’t put a whole lot of fault on these guys. The biggest problem is minus Meier and Briscoe the other guys might as well be decoys 90% of the time. the offense just isn’t looking their way. What happens when a decoy doesn’t get thrown to? You guessed it, not much of a decoy anymore. Again last week, much better in this area.

Long answer but hopefully that sums it up.

at this point we really don’t know what to think either. This thing has been an absolute rollercoaster. Things trickled out and were confirmed by many sources. I think we were all waiting for that one damning piece of evidence though that really justified the investigation. That hasn’t happened and it’s been a week.

So now you have very credible players coming out on his behalf. Nick Reid, Kerry Meier, Jon Cornish, guys that Kansas fans have a lot of respect for. Jocques Crawford and Raymond Brown don’t really have that(these are the two most vocal about his abuse).

Throw into the mix, Bob Stoops, Mike Leach, Bill Snyder and Mack Brown showing support for Mangino and it really makes it tough for fans to pick a side.

One interesting way to look at this is almost generational. The over 30 crowd seems very against Lew in this one and believes he’s clearly just looking to make a switch from the guy that made our football team matter.

The under 30 thinks Lew is the man and making things happen to keep the program moving forward.

I’ve personally talked to several players and former players and he does sound like a classic grade a a$$hole. Still not much has come out that is so bad to warrant what’s currently going on. Fact is, at this point change seems inevitable and most are resigned to that.

The final opinion on the matter will largely be determined by who is hired and what happens from the program from here. Make no mistake though…not a lot of happy people right now regardless of how this turns out.

Right now there is almost too much undetermined to be able to give you a good answer on that.

I will say despite the perception that we were a senior heavy team we really weren’t. Reesing, Meier, Sharp and Briscoe(likely NFL for a variety of reasons) on offense. On defense it was Stuckey and Blakesly at this point. The other 9 on defense will be back and the entire o-line will be back as well as some talented receivers coming up through the system.

Going completely on gut I’ll say more wins based on scheduling and the 08 and 09 recruiting classes beginning to impact the program.