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Moving forward (LONG (not Jeff))

KUhawks34

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Dec 29, 2006
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The writing is on the wall with Les Miles. The question is when KU is looking for the next coach are they going to continue making the same mistake over and over again? I have zero faith, personally.

I sincerely question whether people making these hirings for Athletic Directors and Football coaches actually have any knowledge of who is a good football coach or have any non-biased relationships with people around the country who know who is actually a smart football coach. In fact, it is clear the people making these hirings don’t know the difference and wouldn’t know a good football coach from a bad coach. It all sounds good when the coach presents themself because it is all above there head. I realize it has been different people over time but none of them actually know football regardless of who it is. How much influence do our big donors have in these decisions? There is a reoccurring theme with these hires.

The first issue with hiring a coach is the Jeff long situation. Is he here? Is he gone? Should be gone.

In my opinion, we need to do our process (assuming the people know what they are doing, they dont) and hire a coach in the next couple of weeks. Again, I don’t want Jeff Long making this decision and if our donors have been involved in the past then I don’t want them involved either as much as I appreciate their financial contributions to the program that we wouldn’t survive without.

It would be a major mistake if we don’t hire a coach. First off, we are going to lose players like with any coaching change. This next season won’t be pretty and we will lose more after the season. If you hire a coach now you give the players a chance to see what the new Coach is about and you give yourself a chance to retain any young player.

The next year following this year will be bad regardless. The benefits of hiring a new coach now is you start to build the culture, you retain players, you can sell recruiting, and install a foundation for a new system depending on what side of the ball the coach specializes in. In terms of recruiting if we wait a year, we will not be able to recruit anyone, establish relationships AND lose more players than we otherwise would. I would expect our new coach would not be able to hire a full staff. He would likely bring a coach or two but in large part he would keep most of the staff here which is fine. That isn’t the point. The next off-season he could do a staff evaluation; make changes where he sees fit. It would be a massive mistake if we do not hire a coach now and wait a year. It would be yet another terrible decision made by the university of Kansas.

I have seen talk about how we cannot find a good coach at this point which is 100% false. You can find a good coach at any point. You just have to know what you are looking for. It is clear the people over the years do not know what they are looking for.

In the past couple days (and really the last few years) I have talked to multiple successful D1 coaches who are not “ku guys” but love KU. They constantly talk about how it blows their minds with the decisions KU makes and how KU is not more successful than Iowa State and Kansas State. They say KU should consistently be fighting for a lower level bowl game and every few years you have that special senior class and you make a run like Mangino did.

Being a KU guy should not automatically qualify someone or disqualify someone. Kansas needs to first and foremost hire a true football coach who knows the game (obviously but we have failed with that in 3 of the last 4 coaches). So maybe it isn’t so obvious. Kansas also needs to hire someone who will make this personal. Someone who accepts they have to outwork everyone and this job will determine their career. It is life or death to them.

As much as I hated the David Beaty hire, it was at least personal to him and he genuinely tried his best. The problem with him is he doesn’t know football to be a coordinator let alone a head coach. He was severely under qualified and that was a major red flag for disqualification.

Charlie Weis was the best “football coach” we hired but he literally didn’t give a shit and this wasn’t personal to him. It was a cash grab and he was lazy. But he was by far the smartest coach we have had. Had he cared about KU, the job and recruited it would have worked. But he didn’t.

Turner Gill was not willing to put in the work and like David Beaty did not know football. He was also under qualified despite being a head coach. It wasn’t personal and he didn’t know football at a coordinator level let alone a head coach.

Les Miles couldn’t survive at LSU and had horrible offenses despite having as good of talent as anyone. Once again, this job isn’t personal to him and it was another retread coach at the back of his career who wasn’t looking at this job as life or death and was not capable of putting in the work. His offenses were horrible. His coaching staff was lacking. He was doing a decent job recruiting. He could not run this program on a day to day basis. It is a circus with the media. Jeff Long and Miles want to be on camera. That is it.

you have to look at the job as life or death because you otherwise will not put in the work. You cannot survive at Kansas unless it is personal to you, you know football, and you are willing to put in the work. There are good football coaches who would not be successful at Kansas because it requires way more work than these coaches are used to and 3 of the last 4 coaches haven’t made it personal.

believe when I tell you there are a lot of bad football coaches who are head coaches. It happens. There are a lot of bad football coaches out there but they all sound great to the average person when they present there case to random donors, ad’s and committee’s who do not know football.

Let’s talk Kansas State and Iowa State. Why are they successful? Why was Kansas Successful under Mangino? It is plain and simple: culture, toughness and discipline. Of course you need a quarterback to win games but none of it matters if you don’t have the backbone and foundation or toughness, discipline and culture. That is where you start and those are the consistent traits of two other programs that are similar to us. Those programs HIRE football coaches. They don’t hire retread media splashes like Miles and Weis. They don’t hire under qualified coaches who do not know ball like Beaty and Gill.

They hire true football coaches who know the game, are willing to work and make their job life or death to them. It is personal. It isn’t just a job. They all have a background of toughness and discipline. At Kansas you will not be successful if your football team is not tough and disciplined because you will almost always be less talented against the teams that matter when you are in the process of building your program. You have to be assignment sound and in order to do that you have to have a coach who actually knows football.

There isn’t a job that is harder than Kansas in the p5 league besides maybe 1-3 schools.

Stop hiring retreads. Stop hiring under qualified coaches.

start hiring younger coaches at non-p5 schools, who actually know football (not turner Gill), whose career would be on the line AND have a track record of success of building a program whose football team is known to be tough and disciplined. If any of those traits are missing for a current HC then do not hire them.
I am fine with the coordinator route but the rest of the traits have to be there but word would be out of this coach actually knows football because they would have come from a bigger school.

Think about this way, what are the differences between Charlie Weis and Les Miles compared to Chris Klieman and Matt Campbell. I didn’t include Gill and Beaty because they never should have been considered because they were so under qualified. Don’t go for the name. Go for the guy who knows football and had success at lower levels. Even the coaches at ISU who were fired had some success at times and had those same traits. But look at what their floor was? It wasn’t bottoming out like Kansas. It just wasn’t good enough.


Sorry for the long post but this shit is so simple. It doesn’t mean it is going to work but my god the worst possible scenario with the traits I have illustrated above is a coach who will be more successful than any of the last 4 coaches.

Others should be considered BUT Kevin Kane should be interviewed deeply. Kevin Knows football; that I know for sure. It is a fact. He can line up a defense properly. He is also very aggressive which can be good and bad. He may not have the highest ceiling but he knows football, knows what the job requires, the time and effort required, it would be personal, it would be life and death, is built on toughness and discipline, knows the type of team that needs to be fielded to win at Kansas. Is he a slam dunk? No but he is the type of person we need to look at if we go the coordinator route. Winning at Kansas will be hard. But we don’t give our self a chance because we don’t know the type of person that needs to come here or at least the people make the decisions don’t. Kansas isn’t a quick turn around and yes we need to give the coach 5 years. Yes firing coaches after a couple seasons is bad BUT you have to do it when screw up the initial hire.

People in power at Kansas; get rid of Les Miles and Jeff Long shit show then get the hell out of the way for someone who knows what the hell they are doing.
 
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