Whitlock Puts On The Tiger Head

"Va. Tech-Kansas is a terrible matchup. The handful of Kansas fans who pony up to fly to Miami will have a great time at South Beach and plenty of elbow room at game time."

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/388445.html

Note to Jason
Like Lee Corso, once you put on the Tiger Head, it never comes off. You are now a Tiger forever. Let me know how that works out for you. You've trashed KU fans twice now, so no more jumping back and forth.

Simple Math
1 < 2

One More Time
KU needs to beat Missouri to keep national title hopes alive. KU loses to Missouri. KU loses shot at a national title but is absolutely in the Top 10 slots as one of only two BCS one-loss teams. Chase Daniels demonstrates side effects of steroid usage and Missouri pees pants in San Antonio so KU should lose BCS status? We put it on the line moving a home game to Arrowhead and our QB didn't throw a tantrum on national TV. We did the right things. We played our schedule and had one eight-point loss. Putting a home win against some low-rung BCS team in place of Toledo doesn't matter, it still totals up to 11 wins. Well, I guess it matters -- it would have given us LSU's spot in the national championship game or at least a claim to it.

KU May Be Converting Me

Fall Madness

It's no secret that I've been a proponent of a playoff for college football pretty much since birth. However, KU's run to a 7-0 record has me thinking a little different. When your team is undefeated, it takes on the feel of a hoops team going deep into March. Each week is survive and advance and although the "experts" near and far assure us each week that the Jayhawks will fall, they continue to advance. Five teams are still standing and all I care about right now is watching Boston College on Thursday night to see if another door can open for the Jayhawks.

A playoff system has always been appealing to me, but it's pretty clear now that in the Big 12 we should be up for the status quo. The split divisions and championship game pretty much guarantee an undefeated Big 12 champion an invite to the big game. It always been there, but the concept is a little more tangible when your team is riding high in the BCS standings.

Of course, it works that way for all BCS conferences with championship games, but the trick is running the table. Speaking of which, that explains why KU is drawing so much heat. There's such a long way to go, but like the 1998 Wildcats, the establishment of college football is starting to sweat the fact that a KU team that had a once-in-a-decade soft non-con is edging uncomfortably close to crashing the big party.

Texas A&M is their latest road block, but faith in the Aggies must be minimal as the attacks against Kansas intensify. The thought of KU slipping through the next four and going into the Arrowhead game with 50,000 crimson and blue fans behind them is enough to make em' sweat.

So the debate and criticism continue while KU fans enjoy the ride ... the truth is each week feels like a playoff game and I like it.

Justice Game Redux

Bring It

Many times sports fans reference the "Gods of Football" or look to the sky after a rough loss and question why. The presence of an otherworldly force in college football is not even debatable. Ask any Missouri fan.

In 1994, the cosmic balance of college football was hopelessly twisted beyond the scope of human understanding. The hated Wildcats travelled east with a team good enough to finally steal a win in Lawrence. There was an overload of purple that day and as expected they were not gracious visitors. In my 15 plus years of attending games, I've never again witnessed a group of visiting fans that could even touch the level of disrespect that those "fans" brought to the pregame atmosphere. That, I suppose, was to be expected, but still way too over the top. As scripted, KSU won 21-13, and clearly emerged as the better team. What happened next defied all logic. The KSU fans tore down our goalpost. To this day, Mizzou fans raz us about letting it happen. The truth is that it was so below the belt that KU fans were totally caught off guard. Had the possibility occurred to anyone, there would have been a melee on the field, but KU fans had once again overestimated the bitter folks from the west.

As 1995 rolled around, the universe seemed ready to make amends. KU rolled out to a 4-0 start with a series of fortunate bounces against a fairly weak non-con schedule. When KU shocked #5 Colorado in Boulder 40-24, it was clear that the Gods of Football were immediately ready to correct the injustice visited upon Lawrence in 1994. KU then beat up on ISU and travelled to Norman for a rare road win against the Sooners. KU was 7-0 and heading to Manhattan with a #7 ranking to exact a measure of justice on the Wildcat Nation that only the people of Bible times could conceive.

The result. A 41-7 Kansas State beatdown. Justice denied and spit upon. The cosmic punishment continued for KU as the best football team I've watched at the university racked up 10 wins, but the celebration was muted as Glen Mason did his job reversal two-step in Hawaii. The Christmas Curse of 1995 took hold and KSU actually ran up 11 straight wins on KU as the program went into a deep football coma at the exact wrong time in history.

Mangino released us from the tyranny of KSU football in 2004. Last year, the KU win once again established the Sunflower Smackdown as a true rivalry. However, there is one debt left unpaid. The table is set nearly as it was in 1995. The time is now ... bring the justice. Set the world free.

Best Coach to Party With -- Big 12

In honor of the thread ranking the Big 12 coaches on the Gridiron board, I thought we'd try something different. Rank the coaches based on how fun they'd be for a night on the town.

1. Mark Mangino -- Hey, he's the ultimate wingman with cash to burn. Plus, he's a KU man. No contest.
2. Mike Leach -- Adding alcohol to this personality kind of scares me, but so what, at least it will be interesting. I envision sort of a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sort of evening.
3. Mike Gundy -- Does he have a fake I.D.?
4. Mack Brown -- If he can dial-in the UT cheerleaders, then maybe.
5. Guy Morriss -- I'll bet this guy's had a few. In fact, he had to have been sauced when he accepted the job.
6. Bob Stoops -- Not if he's going to wear that visor.
7. Gene Chizik -- See Mack Brown.
8. Dan Hawkins -- Okay, but only if Bluto, Otter and D-Day come along as well.
9. Bill Callahan -- Sure, we can bring the minivan and not talk to a female all evening. I'll have to see if I can find my Dockers.
10. Ron Prince -- Have you seen his wardrobe? I don't like to go out to get my ass kicked. If we could get Gary P. to come along, I'd probably be asleep in about four minutes.
11. Dennis Franchione -- Yep, for a for rousing game of Jenga.
12. Gary Pinkel -- Mr. Personality? No way. Two drinks and I bet he's like, "Hey, are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?"

KU Season Tickets and Priority Points

Blurring the Lines

A recent viewing of the classic American film Fever Pitch provided a fresh reminder of the greatest downside of the select-a-seat/points system. As a season-ticket holder since roughly 1997, I have to say being a season-ticket holder in the current system feels a lot like not being a season-ticket holder. Pre-points you laid down the cash for the season package and headed out for six games at Memorial. If you liked your seats, you renewed. If not, you made a donation and tried a different area. It wasn't really that hard to find a good seat, then you just renewed. You'd get to know the folks around you and same crew would be there year after year. In the new world, you get bad seats -- no big deal, you'll be switching out. You get good seats -- too bad, enjoy them while you got em'.

Now I'm certainly not on the July Woodling/Mayer doom and destruction for KU campaign. The upside is huge revenue and I understand the dollar war that we are engaged in. Ultimately I want a team that will win. Wins are driven by cash, pure and simple and I'll play in the new system. Still, as the season gets closer, I think about the first game and locating our new seats 40 rows higher after multiplying our WEF donation by 11. By the seventh home game we'll be comfortable with the location and a new system for getting in and out. Then, I'll start thinking about the next season and where we'll be next as line blurs between being a season-ticket holder and a single-game ticket holder.

Chuck Woodling Hates KU?

Or Just Mark Mangino?

Or maybe it's Lew Perkins? Who knows, but I couldn't have been more surprised to return from a little out of town trip to find this venom-filled article in the Lawrence-Journal World. The only question is will this be a full-on LJW attack or just a one-man campaign. Be careful guys. KUsports.com is a great site, don't diminish that by trying to set the agenda. Here's a little sample of the good stuff:

"If the latest tactic doesn’t work, then they’ll probably say they need to remove the running track from the stadium as well. But that’s Kansas football. They’re always looking for the answer."

Also, Chuck loses a lot of credibility by failing to recognize "Blue Wings Rising" as the worst marketing campaign since Barbarian Queen II.

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.

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.

Fantasy Island

The Alternate World of Gary Pinkel

I caught a little bit of Kevin Keitzman interviewing Missouri coach Gary Pinkel during the five o'clock show on signing day. Keitzman asked if it was a little more difficult to recruit in the Kansas City area just over the state line, noting that a few of the 2007 MU commits came from the Johnson County area. Pinkel said no and that they considered all of Kansas City part of Missouri. In fact, they had a kid from Illinois sign as well just on the other side of St. Louis and he considered that part of Missouri as well. He considers all of them in-state recruits. Sure its minor, but after the "victory" over Iowa State, I'd recommend frequent check-ups. It seems Gary might be slipping away to an alternate reality. It's probably nothing, but the warning signs are there.

GP - Blurring the lines of reality