Gators President Backs Down On Playoffs

What Happened?

Maybe he got leaned on at the SEC meeting:

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=ap-sec-playoffplan&prov=ap&type=lgns

Keegan Seems Confident ... I Guess

Just Four Wins Baby!

LJW Columnist Tom Keegan wants four conference wins:

"Now the question is, can Kansas win four of these eight: at Kansas State, Baylor, at Colorado, at Texas A&M, Nebraska, at Oklahoma State, Iowa State and vs. Missouri at Arrowhead Stadium?"

Gee, I thought maybe we should try to win six ... you know set a new precedent with two road conference wins

The NFL Draft vs KU

Rah-Rah Speech #7

The anti-Mangino crowd on the Gridiron Board has a pretty good sustained campaign/effort going on now that we're into the true off-season. The latest evidence that Mark Mangino is laying waste to the program is back-to-back shutouts from the NFL draft. Evidently, this indicates that the coach can't recruit and we have minimal talent on the field. If that's true, then we're going to have to give the coach a lot of credit for training and gameday as he's probably overachieved by getting bowl eligible in three of the past four seasons.

I disagree on the recruiting aspect though. Maybe we have some undersized players or some guys that aren't quite 4.4 speed -- in other words, players that don't fit into the NFL beauty pageant mold. Hey, when I'm going into the Big 12 wars, I'll take Nick Reid, Charlton Keith, Aqib Talib and Charles Gordon over a Stewart Bradley any day (I would like an Adam Carriker though). I dislike re-stating the obvious, but Mangino stepped into a program that was rock bottom. This is being built from the ground up and the growth, the change in attitude is clear to anyone that survived the previous era. In relative terms both 2005 and 2006 were disappointing years in that both teams looked like eight plus game winners on paper. The underachievement is frustrating for the fans, but I can sense it from the coaches and players as well. No one can argue that we are a competitive team now. Despite OSU's second half romp, most teams that come into Memorial Stadium get a full 60-minute war. With a few coaching changes and a little more experience and depth at QB and secondary, the pieces are there. The next step is an attitude amongst the players that every game is theirs. A lot of these guys were new starters last year and hopefully they learned that if you don't take it, it will get taken from you.

We were 7-5 in 2005 and 6-6 in 2006 and no one is happy with that. That's a good thing. We should be rabid for the start of the '07 season.

Big 12 Spring Game Rankings

Headed in the Right Direction

Though I'm frequently told that KU fans don't care about football, the 8,200 that showed up for this year's spring game represented another increase. That figure was good enough for eighth in conference with seventh clearly in sight. You have to give Mark Mangino some credit as the attendance has increased each year under his regime. The "sparse crowd" days of Terry Allen seem so long ago.

 1. Nebraska: 54,288
 2. Texas: 42,500
 3. Texas A&M: 24,212
 4. Oklahoma: 21,020
 5. Kansas State: 16,732
 6. Oklahoma State: 15,000
 7. Missouri: 10,000
 8. Kansas: 8,200
 9. Iowa State: 7,000
10. Colorado: 5,800
11. Texas Tech: 3,000
12.  Baylor: "A sparse crowd"

Love for Mizzou, Nebraska and KSU

Jayhawks Are Fourth?

Checking with Blair Kerkhoff and his "Spring Fling" round up in the KC Star, he is enamored with both Missouri and Nebraska as north division title favorites -- a position which is by no means unique amongst sportswriters. It goes a little deeper though as I trolled through a recent Gridiron Board thread where most of the KU fans said we really didn't have a chance against Mizzou this year. Of course, a lot of that was bitterness over the move to Arrowhead and the impending catastrophic effects to the program which are now absolute fact on the world wide web.

In addition, the trend is to pick KU to finish behind the Wild Cats of Manhattan for a dazzling fourth place North Division finish. And yes, given the history of KU football, the skepticism is justified based on the exacting standards of the local sports journalists. Even if you could justify that KU could be better on paper in 2007 with a more experienced defense and set of quarterbacks, the find-a-way to lose events of the 2006 season would scare away even the most adventurous of sports experts. Plus you can throw in the loss of Jon Cornish and the interior O-line. So bottom line, I'm not blaming anyone for not jumping out on a limb for the Hawks; however, I would like to throw out some items to consider about what is the consensus "power trio" of the Big 12 North:

1) The Big Red Machine up north does appear to be gaining a little steam and a little swagger. And of course, QB Sam Keller is going to be an instant Heisman contender:

" .... Nebraska shouldn’t lose a beat with Sam Keller, a transfer from Arizona State with one year of eligibility."
--Blair Kerkoff

Still, I'd like a chance to evaluate his actual game performance, before we place these guys in the title game. I can think of a few QB transitions that have gone awry over the years.

2) The new Mizzou offense is clearly unstoppable behind Chase Daniel. Maybe, but a few powerhouses in last year's north division (NU, ISU) found ways to keep things in check at home against the Tigers. Plus, now that we've seen how it is supposed to operate and the league coaches have had an off season to study it, I suspect there will be a few rough outings in 2007. Of course, I'm very interested in how Bill Young will approach the black and gold "O" next season (by the way, his second team defense still struggled against the quick slant).

3) So that leaves us with the schizophrenic KSU program that appears to be primed to either finish in first or last. Perhaps third is a safe choice as the Cats like to balance things out -- road loss to Baylor, rip your heart out win over OSU or try a gigantic win over Texas, fall to in-state rival, then get humiliated in bowl game (insert at least we were in a bowl game comment here*).  So you say they're destined for the middle and you give them the edge over the Hawks due to hosting the game in purple land. I suppose a lot has to do with the performance of Josh Freeman. See this thread for informative debate on that one.

Anyway, I guess I'm a little skeptical on the crew that we've gone 5-4 against over the past three seasons. I like the fact that we have two QBs with Big 12 game experience that certainly seem to be able to rise to the level of say a Jason Swanson. Couple that with the concept that Bill Young won't be plugging in eight new starters on defense and it's not that hard to envision a team that can defend it's home turf like the one from 2005. Now if we could just find our annual weak road game win we'd be set. Any ideas?

*Applies to 2006 only. 2005 bowl attendees need not apply.

Post Spring Depth Chart

A Few Surprises Here and There

KU has officially released a depth chart. Everything pretty much adds up except the fact that wideouts Tertavian Ingram, Raimond Pendleton and Xavier Rambo are all absent from the two-deep. I really thought at least one of these guys would see significant playing time in 2007, and I was really shocked to see Angus Quigley lining up in the slot at the spring game. I still think he's a running back, but I hope it pans out. I will admit Raymond Brown looked pretty good as a receiver on Sunday.

Marcus Henry Takes Charge

Memorial Stadium 45 minutes prior to the start of the 2007 Spring Game

Spring Fling

Blue 48, White 0 -- I'll let you determine which one was the first team.

Official KU Athletics Coverage Link

"Geez look at Meier's hair. Sharp's got a pretty good mop going as well -- are we a football team or Lynyrd Skynyrd?"

• 8200 attendance -- continued improvement.
• There's quite a range of opinions on the Gridiron Board, but I give a slight edge to Reesing at QB. That's based on the fact that when he throws he really seems to deliver the ball. If he's throwing at an open receiver, he gets it in his hands. His escapability is also a big plus. Needs to hold onto the ball. Again, it's only a slight edge as Meier has his strengths as well. Either one of these guys can lead us to nine plus wins.
• Marcus Henry -- 6 rec  150yd  3 TD -- yes!
• B-Mac 15/80 and 2 tds.
• Talib played quite a bit at wideout. He is an awesome talent, but I like him focused on defense.
• Rivera played with the white team, possibly to balance things out (8 tackles). Mortenson (10 tackles, 1 sack) looked good -- he's got a mean streak as he even had a questionable hit on Meier. (Checking the local media today it looks as though Mortenson has edged Rivera at the moment for the starting spot)
• The quarterbacks were live in the first half. I like it. I think we're developing a real football attitude across the board.
• The O-line looks strong, I really don't think our back-up d-line is quite that bad.
• Looking at Marc Jones, I'm kind of wanting to go to the old Washington Redskins/Riggins two-tight end offense.
• We saw a lot of passing today, but I'd guess that we saw the very basic version of this offense. I'm also thinking Sharp's carries were limited strictly to keep him off of the opponents radar (wrong-tweaked foot injury).
• Interesting that KSU made our poster.
• Justin Thornton played defense.
• Angus Quigley played at wide receiver.
• Jake Sharp did play with a tweaked ankle. Dexton Fields and Tertavian Ingram did not play due to minor injuries.

Spring Is Here

Jayhawk's Have Spring Game Envy

While other Big 12 schools have put up gawdy numbers for spring games, Kansas will expect to see about 5,000 at today's game. The crazy thing is that is about five times the attendance from my first spring game early in this decade. Despite steady growth during the Mangino era, I'm still not sure how roughly 25,000 season ticket holders can pass on free admission, a free-t-shirt and the relaxed, festive spring atmosphere. No matter, the school is working on it -- KUsports.com link. My suggestion is to unveil a new mega-board to rival the Texas and Nebraska standard at the 2008 spring game. Surely such an aquistion is in our near future to keep up in the recruiting battles.

For your best preview of the today's game, I recommend today's KC Star article. For your recap/analysis, I recommend tomorrow's edition of Hawk Digest.

KU Plays Football

Of course there are some risks with actual scrimmage, but I like the idea of more scrimmage during the spring and even in August that the LJW recently reported on. Reps are good prep but actually playing football helps as well. Plus, as a player that's the kind of program that I would want to be in. Think of the freshman that redshirts -- it can be a full two years before you get to play actual football. If you want to advance, you've got to take some chances and I like the atmosphere coming out of the program right now. Perhaps, the program has been a little too much by the book. That worked to get us competitive, but now innovation could be the key to kicking down that door that we've been knocking on the past few years.

Ryan Wood On Staff

Count of posters during today's chat with Ryan Wood that think he is on the coaching staff = 2.

http://www2.kusports.com/chats/2007/apr/13/ryan_wood/

Bowl Bid For Navy

Are we allowed to make our own bowl deal like Navy?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/football/ncaa/04/11/bc.fbc.poinsettiabowl.n.ap/index.html?eref=si_ncaaf

Brandon Duncan Out?

It's Starting to Look Official

Now that the LJW world is reporting on it, it's probably safe to say LB Brandon Duncan will leave the team. He came in as a big-time recruit out of Texas that the Longhorns kind of bailed on in the final recruiting stages. We saw some glimpses on the field, but never got to see the full potential. Mainly, it looks like it may affect depth at the position. However, you can debate the overall meaning here:

http://forums.scout.com/mb.aspx?S=172&FIX=1#S=172&F=2485&T=382502