Collins Leaves KU

Assistant Headed to UCF

Yesterday's news that Earnest Collins would leave Kansas to become the secondary coach at Central Florida was a little surprising. Technically, it's a move up in that he is just the cornerbacks coach for KU (also special teams coordinator), but it's a step down to a 4-8 Conference USA team. However, coaches are a little nomadic, so we probably shouldn't read too much into it.

The critical issue is how it will affect the program. A lot of fans will be quick to point out that the pass defense wasn't exactly stellar this season. True, but Collins did cultivate talented corners Charles Gordon, Aqib Talib and Theo Baines. Also, though Anthony Webb had his struggles, he definitely showed improvement throughout the season as a true freshman thrown into the fire.

Mainly, I think KU may have some trouble replacing some of the emotional fire that Collins brought to the sidelines. From a recruiting standpoint, Rivals only lists Collins as being in on one recruit (DE Aaron Mack), so the loss isn't too big there. Hopefully, KU has a good, energetic replacement in mind and good luck to Earnest with UCF.

Earnest Collins Profile

In the News Today

In-Depth article from the Journal-World on JUCO LOIs

Farewell to Bravenet

A New Look

By now the URL re-direct should be in full effect and you're viewing a brand new Hawk Digest. While the old host (Bravenet) has been good to me, there were a few limiting features that meant it was time to move on. The main issue was that the Bravenet blogging service wasn't working very well with the search engines. Secondarily, the templates were pretty limiting. There are two key features that I will miss though -- the tagboard and the archiving system. Hopefully, I'll be able to reduplicate those items in the future.

There are some hangovers from old site. All of the old articles have not been moved over yet. Bravenet doesn't provide an export, so that will probably take some time. Also, once they are moved over they probably won't look as pretty as they did in their original format, but the info will be there. For now, I have a link to the old archive that will be active until all files are transferred.

It'll take some time to fully realize a lot of the new tools here with Squarespace, but I did incorporate a quick news section to the left that I'll use much like the tag board on the old site. Other than a new look, the other current improvement is more essential football links. If nothing else, I've found myself using Hawk Digest as a jumping off place to get to specific site pages -- link the Rivals Commit page. So, enjoy and now we can get back to talking about football.

Why All the Excitement?

Filling the Holes

Opposing fans and critics of Mark Mangino are questioning the enthusiasm over the trifecta of recruits that orally committed to the Kansas football program this past Sunday. After all the 2007 class is still ranked fifth in the division and tenth in the conference. For the KU optimist though, it's pretty simple -- the Jayhawks have addressed the major personnel issues despite what should be a tough recruiting year (high expectations not met, several close losses on TV).

Every KU fan wants some help in pass coverage, so people were thinking secondary -- enter three-star JUCO defensive backs Patrick Resby and Kendrick Harper. Of course, it became clear as the season progressed that we were really missing some pressure from the defensive end position. Throw in JUCO DE Aaron Mack for some immediate help.

The other areas of concern -- losing the core of the offensive line and stud running back Jon Cornish. No problem -- here comes three-star JUCO OL Chet Hartley and highly-touted Texas running back Carmen Boyd-Anderson at 6-1/200 lb. and 4.5 speed.

Please note -- recruiting accolades and stars do not guarantee future success. However, recruiting season is for the optimists and from that perspective it's been a good week. It'll be tough for the Hawk's to match the 2005 and 2006 classes, but it sure looks like the program is building depth across the board.

Today's News Links:
Journal World: Fuzzy Math Helps Jayhawks

A Big Sunday

More Links on Yesterday's Commits
LJW story
Aaron Mack College Page
Jake Laptad High School Page

Recruiting Heats Up

Hawks Land Three

According to the Rivals site, KU landed the following verbal commitments today:

Chet Hartley/OL
Three stars --  6-4/310/5.0 -- El Dorado, KS (Butler County C.C.)
Other interest: Arizona State, Florida State, Illinois
Rivals Link

Jake Laptad/DE
Two stars -- 6-4/214/4.9 -- Jenks, OK
Other interest: Tulsa
Rivals Link

Aaron Mack/DE
Three stars -- 6-3/240/4.6 -- Phoenix, AZ (Phoenix College)
Other interest: Utah
Rivals Link

2007 KU Verbal Commitments
PS  STAR Player/Location/Ht/Wt/40/Signed
CB  ***  Brian Murphy/Lawrence, KS - 5-8/165 - 06/21/2006
LB  ***  Drew Dudley/College Station, TX - 6-2/221/4.59 - 07/24/2006
LB  ***  Steven Foster/Sedgwick, KS - 6-2/235/4.60 - 10/6/2006
CB  ***  Kendrick Harper/Butler County CC - 5-10/185/4.45 - 12/1/2006
DB  ***  Patrick Resby/Corsicana Navarro CC - 6-2/195-12/10/2006
RB  ***  Carmen Boyd-Anderson/Jacksonville, TX - 6-1/200/4.5-12/11/06
DE  ***  Aaron Mack/Phoenix, AZ - 6-3/240/4.6 - 12/17/06
OL  ***  Chet Hartley/Butler County C.C. - 6-4/310/5.0 - 12/17/06 
WR  **   Ryan Murphy/Lawrence, KS - 5-9.5/170 - 06/09/2006 
WR  **   Isiah Barfield/Haven, KS - 6-0/175 - 06/29/2006
DT  **   Patrick Dorsey/Houston, TX - 6-0/255/5.30 - 07/27/2006
WR  **   Chris Tuck/Dallas, TX - 6-4/200/4.50 - 05/22/2006
QB  **   A.J. Steward/St. Louis, MO - 6-4/210/4.6 - 11/19/06
DE  **   Richard Johnson/Jefferson City, MO - 6-4/255/5.0 - 12/10/06
DE  **   Jake Laptad/Jenks, OK - 6-4/214/4.9 - 12/17/06

Kansas Football Blog

www.annependleton.com

The Mission

Watching the launch of a cool new KU blog called Rock Chalk Talk this week got me to thinking that I really needed to set forth the mission of Hawk Digest. The decision to start this thing didn't come easily. I toyed with the idea of blogging the KU football team for about two years. Finally, I jumped in full force a few weeks into this season. The debate was whether or not it was really needed. The Lawrence Journal-World has a critically-acclaimed site in KUsports.com  that does an awesome job of covering all KU sports. I've been around a lot of Big 12 sites this year and the LJW site is hands-down, the best. In addition to the LJW, there are three KU football message boards out there that actually provide pretty good info and discussion -- Phog.net, KUsports and Jayhawkslant.com. Of course, the Slant and Phog also provide recruiting info.*

So with all of that available what would a blog offer? I really didn't know, but as I was searching around I found out that K-State and most of the other Big 12 schools had a football-focused blog. Phog Blog is an excellent KU blog, but it's pretty focused on basketball. With that info in hand, I decided KU football really deserved a blog just to keep up with the Big 12. Sort of like gigantic video boards, it could be critical for recruiting.

From there I started to think about what a blog could provide. I settled on the idea that a good football blog should offer a few things:

• A condensed look at all of the major news
• A filter for the quality information and rumors that flow through the message boards
• Recruit signings and class updates with a little analysis
• Opinion on the games, program and conference

So I came up with the idea that it should really be a digest of all things KU football. The URL hawkdigest.com followed, but I can't really remember why I passed on Jayhawk Digest.** The site has really held pretty much to those objectives, but I'm still looking to improve. In the meantime, the posts will keep coming and let's hope the Hawks are thinking about 2007.

*It's generally accepted that the Phog.net gridiron board is the most popular KU football message board, but JayhawkSlant is better at covering football recruiting.
**There may have been a magazine called Jayhawk Digest for a while. That may have been why I avoided that name.