Spring Game Special Notes

Checking in on the Fox Spring Game special this weekend:

• Does the host/hostess always wear the school colors?
• I love Memorial Stadium.
• Mark Mangino's comments on Isiah Barfield caught my attention. Sounds like he is legit and may be a true contender for a starting position. We all know about his speed. If his skills match up, watch out.
• The underlying theme is valid and the Hawks might as well get used to it. Can you win with a target on your back? The players are saying all of the right things, but let's hope they really are ready to take it up to another level. Nineteen sixty-eight is a long time ago. Time to bury it.

Spring Game Special Starts Today

Fox will start airing the KU football spring special today at 2:00 p.m. For Kansas City Time Warner users Fox is on channel 59. It's also airing at 10:30 p.m. on 5/6 and 5:30 p.m. on 5/8 this week. For a full schedule, check the official KU press release.

James McClinton Gets A Call from the Chiefs

The Kansas City Star is reporting a free agent try out for J-Mac with the Kansas City Chiefs. Glenn Dorsey and James McClinton manning the front line for the Chiefs? Doesn't sound too bad to me.

The NFL Snags Four Jayhawks in the Draft

Aqib Talib / credit: www.annependleton.com

A lot of KU football fans tuned in to ESPN's NFL draft coverage this weekend and as predicted, Aqib Talib's name was called in the first round as the 20th pick overall by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday. A nice pay day for one of our favorite Jayhawks.

Day two took a little more patience as Anthony Collins slid to the fourth round in the tackle-heavy draft. What can I say? We would have really enjoyed another year of AC, but we certainly understand the reasons for jumping. Offensive line isn't the safest position to try to make it through a full college season without an injury.

A nice surprise occurred just 20 picks later as Derek Fine was taken in the fourth round as well by the Buffalo Bills. Again, I love to our Jayhawks rewarded for all of the work they put in.

Marcus Henry was the final Jayhawk selected but again went slightly earlier than anticipated at 171 in the sixth round to the Jets. Brandon Rideau is still playing on Sunday, so I certainly feel like Henry as a similar type wideout could become a solid receiver in the NFL.

Once the draft ended, the action wasn't quite over as Brandon McAnderson signed a free agent contract with St. Louis. James McClinton is talking to some teams and should get a free agent contract as well.

So, the four-player KU draft ends up being the best since 1996. I think that says quite a bit right there. Plus, when you are over on the KUsports.com site next season, it's likely you'll see twice the number of players in the "'Hawks in the NFL" module.

Round 1
20. Aqib Talib / Tampa Bay

Round 4
112. Anthony Collins / Cincinnati
132. Derek Fine / Buffalo

Round 6
171. Marcus Henry / New York Jets

Free Agents
Brandon McAnderson / St. Louis
James McClinton / Available for destruction of interior O-lines

Update on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 06:44PM by DJ Goodwin

See new post -- James McClinton is getting a tryout with the Chiefs.

2008 Big 12 Spring Game Attendance

I've been holding onto this data for a while. Texas Tech and Baylor never panned out and Iowa State took a pretty good search. Anyway, this is how it shakes out (see below) for what has become a significant recruiting tool. I was disappointed with the 10k for KU, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that re-scheduling the game for a Monday night after a national championship parade may have had some effect* -- not to mention the weather.  If you compare last year's figures, you can see that the numbers are escalating for spring games across the Big 12. From a recruiting perspective, KU football fans are going to have to step it up. Having the game later in April would certainly help, but it seems like an annual nightmare getting the game scheduled around the KU Relays. Still, the main consideration -- this ranks as the largest crowd for a KU spring game to date and it's grown every year under Mark Mangino.

 1. Nebraska: 80,149 (54,288)
 2. Texas:43,000 (42,500)
 3. Texas A&M: 32,000 (24,212)
 4. Missouri: 26,322 (10,000)
 5. Oklahoma: 23,306 (21,020)
 6. Colorado: 17,800 (5,800)
 7. Kansas State: 15,532 (16,732)
 8. Oklahoma State: 15,000 (15,000)
 9. Kansas: 10,000 (8,200)
10. Iowa State: 8,000 (7,000)
11. Texas Tech: 6k-14k** (3,000)
12. Baylor: no data (sparse crowd)

(2007 attendance)

*As previously reported, our own Hawk Digest intern was on his sixth day out of the last ten in Lawrence for the Monday night spring game.
**Message board reports

2008 Border War Arrowhead Map

Please discuss ...

My Arrowhead Border War Ticket Request Form Arrived

Steps in the Right Direction

On Saturday, I received my KU/Missouri ticket application. I'm not going to say everything is golden and that the event issues have clearly been ironed out. What I do see in the letter I received is recognition of some of the major issues and attempts to improve the 2008 version.

Probably, the best move is that the ticket selection for the game is part of the select-a-seat process for season tickets -- sort of. Citing time issues, you'll only be able to select a section and rows, but I believe they are hoping to have your actual seat locations for you before you leave the select-a-seat event (that's the way I read it anyway). The end result -- despite dropping my WEF contribution from $1100 to $100 this year, I bet that I'm going enjoy my Arrowhead seat location much better this year.

The second critical issue is that they are promising KU parking lots. From the letter:

"If you pre-order your parking AND enter the specific designated gates on game day, you will be allocated and parked in "school sensitive" lots. There are several issues to be worked out, but we can assure you that the parking ordered on this application will be in a KU lot."

Hey, you had me at "enter specific designated gates."

Probably the biggest dissappointment would be that the player tunnel will once again be controlled by MU fans. Literally, KU players can probably get less abuse as they enter the field at Faurot Field. This is one of those things that is just so basic that I never would have thought to bring it up if I had been asked for pre-planning requirements. It's a simple formula -- home fans get the tunnel. Mizzou got it last year, so I thought they might correct it this year. The Arrowhead map shows otherwise. Oh well, maybe it's best for the Jayhawks to get a taste of what MU is all about right before they hit the field.

Still More Spring Game

Spring game swag item #2 -- pocket schedule

Spring game starters from my notes (accuracy not guaranteed)

• O-Line: LT Darton, LG Mayes, C Capra, RG Hartley, RT Wolfe
• Backfield: QB Reesing, RB Sharp
• Targets: Wilson, Herford, Fields, Briscoe
• D-Line: Brorsen, Johnson Jr, Haselhorst, Onyegbule
• LBs: Springer, Rivera, Oguntodu (they say he is a safety, so it may have been a nickel package)
• DBs: Harris, Strozier, Stuckey, Harper
• Special: Kicker-Hoge, Punter-Meier, Returners-Lewis, Murphy, Barfield

Comment for the day

Listing the top wide receivers--Wilson, Herford, Fields, Briscoe, Meier, Pendleton and Harris Jr, it sure looks like this unit could do some damage in 2008. If Herford could become a legitimate go-to guy, things get pretty crazy. If Briscoe eliminates the two drops per game, it may be his final season. Of course, Dexton is quietly awesome as always.

More KU Spring Game Notes

 
Official KU Spring Game 2008 Swag -- The T-Shirt

Notes Part II

• I still don't get the yellow stone on the new football facility. It clashes with the stadium otherwise, it's looks like a first class building. The HD intern reported that the University was allowed to choose the look of the exterior. No confirmation on that, but as you walk down the stairs between the facility and the southwest end of the stadium it creates a nice closed in environment.
• The practice fields. I suppose there will be a few complaints about how they kind of fill up your view from the west side of the stands. Not the greatest looking structure in the world. Still, it used to be a parking lot, so no big change. Plus, they really give the impression of a program that is serious about football (which we are).
• I'm getting pretty excited about the defense. The big losses were Talib and McClinton. Richard Johnson Jr. looks like he will be an immediate impact player. With the way the white team d-line played, it's looking like we have eight guys that are legitimate Big 12 d-lineman. As for corner, Chris Harris and Kendrick Harper seem really comfortable. I'm not seeing much of a drop off. Barfield and Webb look like the #2's and frankly, they've both got potential.
• Think about the players with have for the d-line: Brorsen, Larson, Haselhorst, Johnson Jr, Greene, Blakesly, Laptad, Wheeler, Onyegbule. Really, it could be a special year -- we know who is playing behind them. 
• The game had the feel that the blue team O-line kind of wore down the white team d-line in the second half. A good sign.
• At one point, the blue team ran AQ to the right three straight plays. AQ got good tough yards on the first two and gave you the feeling that we'll be okay with out B-Mac. Jake Schermer showed his experience and blew up the third attempt. This all happened around the 10 yard line. Blue ended up missing a field goal, so a big play for Schermer.
• I showed that Darton and Wolfe started at the tackles. It's certainly not bad to go with your most experienced players on the edges. 

2008 KU Spring Game

Notes

• Is it already time to give Clint Bowen an extension?
• Yep, the defense looked good, but nothing new was shown on either side of the ball. Not surprising, but I'm dying to know how both Bowen and EW will stay ahead of the curve in 2008.
• It looked like a solid 10k to me. The KC Star seemed skeptical, but they're probably just grumpy because they've spent the last week in Lawrence. The Hawk Digest intern was thinking 12k. We might as well round up to 20k.
• Kerry Meier can play football. Looked like he played two straight hours last night. QB for white and WR for blue. Plus, he didn't look too bad punting.
• Todd Reesing suffered a few drops and had a few inaccurate throws, but his footspeed appears to be back. He looked quick running the ball
• A.J. Steward was the third QB in. Looked good on a pass to Gary Green II. Looked inaccurate throwing on the run. Chris Harris should have had a pick on him. Steward looked very good running.
• Kale Pick played quite a bit as well for white and really looked pretty comfortable.
• It would have been nice to hand the keys to the blue team for Steward and Pick for one series.
• Oh yeah, Meier was good at QB. The reality is he is good QB and could start for a number of schools.

To be continued ...

Bowen Doctrine

Solving the spread offense. Sounds like Clint Bowen is all over it. In this article from the KC Star he mentions that defensive philosophy has become stale, specifically the concept that offenses are not good enough to work the length of the field three to five yards at a time.

“Offenses and offensive coordinators, they do have the patience to do that short passing game over and over. To them, a 3-yard pass is just as good as a 3-yard run.”

The article mentions bump and run as part of the solution. We'll see if we get a taste of that tonight at the 7:00 p.m. spring game at Memorial.

KU vs NCAA: The Empire Strikes Back

As expected, the Kansas football program has been docked two scholarships for the 2008 recruiting year by the NCAA for coming in under the 925 APR minimum and having a couple of players bolt that were not in good academic standing. Don't worry, KU already had two scholarships hanging out there. The speculation was floating around earlier in the year, but it's pretty clear now that Mark Mangino and his staff had anticipated this and capped themselves at 20.

So what is the APR. Here is the KUsports.com take:

APR is calculated by giving athletes on scholarship one point per semester for remaining eligible and one point for remaining on campus. The points then are calculated for each team and divided by the highest possible point total. That percentage then is translated to another point total, with 1,000 being the highest. So, a multiyear score of 925 essentially means a team compiled 92.5 percent of all possible points over a four-year period.

A score under 925 doesn’t necessarily mean looming penalties. A program only is subject to penalties if its score is below 925 and an underclassmen fails to pick up a single point in a given semester — that is, leaves campus and leaves in poor academic standing.

Nice, huh? Seems like a great idea to essentially grade it on a curve, so we can always have some institutions in poor standing. Hey, the guys at the NCAA have to make a living as well.

Anyway, the key is that this is really all in the past for the KU football program -- the result of bringing in a pretty big JUCO class in 2003. A couple of people want to pin this on Mangino and I suppose essentially he made the call to go JUCO heavy early on. I'd say he aggresively attacked the plan of turning around a program that was stripped bare. In retrospect, I think Mangino has indicated that he would have done it differently now.

Most KU football fans have decent memory and it's not to difficult to recall 2003 scenario. Coming out of the 2002 season, it was clear that Bill Whittemore was a rare talent and with a little support, he could accelerate the growth curve for the program. With just one more year of eligibility, I even remember a local KC columnist scripting a piece begging Mangino to do what it took to get some talent in to take advantage of the opportunity. Of course, no one is condoning the academic fraud that occurred. It's unfortunate, but it was a self-reported mistake that was clearly an error in handling capacity. As for the impact on our APR scores, well that's just the way it goes. At this point, it's pretty much ancient history. Let the NCAA puff their chest out, but no one is fooled. This is a team with 14 Academic All-Big 12 players and next season that APR mark will be buried.