From when the shit hit the fan with Mangino til now

[CrimsonNBlue]

The scariest thing is that I can come up with an even lower bottom over next few years.

[Deleted User 104]

Hadn't been paying attention to Mangino, but I read that he lost 125 pounds back in 2013?? Good for him. I was always worried about his health.

[pdub]

If Les Miles can't lead us out of this, after all we've done so far to get to him, yes, it can get even lower.
Shut it down.

[NewtonHawk11]

I think it's safe to say we only have Les because of the dead hookers found in Beaty's closet.

But in all seriousness, I think Les is a perfect hire right now. Get the excitement up. He can still recruit from all we've heard from coaches and recruits they are going after. He has a pretty dang good staff with him and they have thrown a ton of money. We don't need Les to go 8-4. We're fine with 5-7 and a bowl game here and there.

I don't think Les wants to be 5-7 all the time, but he knows what he has in front of him, but him and the staff will work like hell to get this team to a record over .500.

[Sparko]

So many low points. Snapping the ball over the head of punters at a key time. Over-throwing open receivers in the clutch. And some calls that only go against a team with one or no wins.

[NewtonHawk11]

Just thinking of punts.

Kansas, under Weis, ran a fake punt. On 4th and 15. From their own 16. In a 10-10 game against Tech in the 2nd quarter.

Yikes.

[PhDhawk]

Go big or go take a nap on the cot in your office.

[ousdahl]

good discussions.

is there a specific moment that the shit hit the fan with Mangino?

cuz I was gonna say, despite all the shit brought up thus far, that the lowest post was still loosing to mizzou.

[pdub]

For me, yea, it was loosing that game we shoulda won at Arrowhead and then knowing, likely because of that loss, we were going to make the dumb decision to fire Mangino.

[CrimsonNBlue]

is there a specific moment that the shit hit the fan with Mangino?

Probably not quite what you are looking for, but 10/8/05, we lost to a bad Kansas State team 12-3. A large portion of the fan base thought Lew would fire Mangino, and at that time I was not opposed to it.

Kind of a lesson in patience, but sometimes you just know pretty early. e.g. Gill, Weis.

[NewtonHawk11]

I attended the game that started the downward fall for Kansas football.

KU at Colorado. 34-31 loss. Reesing pass to Briscoe at the end just came up a bit short. That game was some BS. A horrible OPI call on Meier on a pass from Reesing that would have put KU up in 4th quarter with 4 minutes to go.

Horrible 2nd quarter. Comeback in 4th quarter. Just came up short.

Mangino didn't win a game again.

[pdub]

I was at The Village Pourhouse in NYC ( back when it was a legit KU bar ) for that one.
Still remember that awful call.

[CrimsonNBlue]

A lot of talent on that team. The motto that year was "Win the North," and it was a realistic goal.

Shows that a bad locker room can damage anything. The Orange Bowl honeymoon was just bad.

Mangino lost everyone. I absolutely think his mental health (which led to worse physical health) played a role--he's an old SOB football coach, ready to fight anyone.

We should not have fired him, but a bad break-up was pretty inevitable.

[CrimsonNBlue]

The incompetent KU Athletic Department:

Lew holding Randy Edsall over Mangino's head seemingly forever.

Mangino holds Orange Bowl over Lew's head, now more powerful, staff threatens a mass exodus.

Lew's east side stadium fundraiser falls flat on its face.

Lew essentially makes the 09 mizzou game a win or be fired game.

Lew and Mangino lock away the details behind the internal investigation because of money and PR.

Lew gives Harbaugh a start date mandate.

Lew having every egg in the Harbaugh basket and finds out only Gill will say yes.

For whatever reason, Lew gives to Gill Harbaugh's contract for appearances and to ensure that his last option would actually come.

Lew steps down early because of ticket scandals and exercise equipment scandals.

The search committee and Gray-Little for whatever reason spar over Bubba Cunningham and the #1 choice that agreed to come gets away to UNC.

Leaves us with Zenger.

Zenger sits calmly during realignment (ends up being good) but there are fears that Pac-12 is our only option.

Zenger cans Gill, arguably early (given what happens the next 10 years)

Zenger ignores the search committee, does it himself, looked all across the country and found the best: Charlie Weis. Weis's tenure at Univ. of Florida was a disaster. Everyone said he had packed it in.

Zenger gives Weis an ironclad top of the conference contract.

Weis sleeps through the job, decimating what was left of the program.

Zenger cans Weis midseason, promotes hometown hero Bowen, which effectively has given Bowen a lifetime contract/blackmail to coach at the University forever.

No coaches want the job, so Zenger picks the position coach over the Ohio State Offensive Coordinator.

Zenger gives Beaty a peanuts contract promising a raise after year 2 when Weis contract is finally paid off.

Beaty wins 2 games in 2 years, still gets the raise.

Beaty looks completely inept to manage a P-5 football program.

Zenger launches a laughable stadium fundraising campaign.

Zenger canned.

Healing (please, let's have some healing.)



I love my alma mater but that is a pathetic display of ineptitude.

[NewtonHawk11]

Sad face.

[pdub]

Better Pizza. Better Ingredients. Awful Football.

[NewtonHawk11]

I know this doesn't fall under her directly, but...

BGL plays a HUGE role in all of this. Even though Long knows what he is doing, Girod still is playing a huge role in the oversight of the department.

[CrimsonNBlue]

I wholeheartedly (and respectfully) disagree.

I've seen that thrown around but it's not only a misunderstanding of the role of the position, but it is also a misunderstanding of why BGL was hired and what the duties relayed to her were.

She was told that the athletic department would operate itself and that she would only be a rubber stamp. KUAC also operates separately from KU legally.

This is KUAC's fault all the way. BGL stood in the way of nothing.

[NewtonHawk11]

But she also didn't see the trainwreck that was clearly happening in front of her eyes.

I mean I get that the AD department mostly works for the boosters and all that. But technically speaking, the AD reports to the Chancellor. That is what it is officially on KUs website.

http://provost.ku.edu/sites/provost.ku. ... _Chart.pdf

And the Chancellor should have seen the chaos in that department. From Zenger disregarding a search committee when he clearly wasn't qualified to make decision on his own, to finally following a search committee, and they pick a position coach who hadn't coached a game in 10+ years when he was on a HS sideline.

And EVEN THEN, she did not fire him. It wasn't until Girod came on board that Zenger was let go. She couldn't do it. Athletics seemed to be so far down her priority list and it showed.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Athletics seemed to be so far down her priority list and it showed.

As it absolutely should be. Athletics is such small potatoes compared to what she and Girod were/are responsible for. She was tasked with raising $2 billion. How many football stadiums is that? Girod was forced to make a 6% budget cut across the entire university in his first year. Those are real problems. KU is also the flagship school in quite possibly the worst state when it comes to governing and politics (especially as it relates to education and also given KU's constant boning from the state). Athletics, as promised, was just not part of her job despite the technical hierarchy. Given her, as promised, short tenure in the position, only a bureaucratic catastrophe would have required her to fire and hire an AD in her lame-duck year.

I can't blame her for punting the Zenger decision to the next Chancellor. The department was by all accounts, finally running like a business under Zenger after the Lew debacle. Zenger just really fucked up football and was a dead man walking. Let the guy who actually serves the same tenure as a new AD hire and pick him.