Simons Says
Rhetorical questions, anyone?
Coming up with clever column ideas isn’t always easy. Case in point, Lawrence Journal World boss hawg Dolph Simons, Jr.’s most recent effort.
His latest; What Will It Take to Turn KU Football Around?
Now there’s a $64 million question for sure, and one that’s already been asked probably 64 million or so times. However unless someone has an idea or four on how to answer the question, why bother to pose it?
“The KU team and coach Bill Self are in the national spotlight, about to wrap up a 12th consecutive conference championship,” Simons begins. “Tickets for a game in Allen Fieldhouse are in high demand and carry a high price tag. Self and his assistants recruit on a national and international level for top prospects. The success of the program strengthens morale, pride and enthusiasm among alumni and helps student recruitment and private fundraising.
“Interest, support and excitement for the basketball program is sky high, but, across the campus, at the KU football office, the mood must be far different.”
Gee, ya think?
That’s what I call great insight!
Read on.
“Various representatives, such as the coach and athletic director, try to put a good face on the situation, but, right now, it is a sad story.”
Anybody else feel like they’re getting brain damage from reading this tripe?
To make matters possibly even more irrelevant- Simons takes a mid column break to the honk-his-own-horn.
“This writer is a strong and enthusiastic supporter of the KU athletics program and was a three-year letterman on the Jayhawk football team,” he continues. “This is pointed out merely to make it clear this writer wants the team to be a winner in every respect.”
Great, he’s not only an ex jock but a fan boy, now what?
How about a bit of insight to cut to the chase and answer the question?
“What is it going to take to turn the program around?” Simons again asks. “It should not be allowed to continue as it is. The university deserves better.”
Enough.
Long story short, KU may need a new chancellor who gives a you-know-what about football and maybe it needs a new stadium. Or maybe it needs a miracle from on high.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
And how about maybe the Journal World needs some editorial leadership from the publisher and editor coupled with a few meaningful, edgy sports columns rather than the same old small town drivel and home town cheerleading.
In the mean time, readers and KU football fans will have to settle for journalistic pablum and asked-but-not-answered questions. Such as the one in the final paragraph of Simons’ yawner:
“Should KU officials be alarmed about the football situation?” he concludes. “How much worse does it have to get before it is an alarming situation?”
Now here’s my question:
How many more inconsequential, rudderless editorials must KU football faithful suffer through before somebody at the Journal World exhibits a bit of leadership and chutzpah?
Real problem is they won’t spend big big money on a really top name coach.
STart there. Close the borders. Keep in state talent in Kansas (if there is any)…
focus on the triangle….qb/runningback/receiver. Recruit starts there.
What good is a cornerback if you can’tscore points and in the big 12 you have
to score lots of points.
Get the old timers out. Bring a coach on the rise…..or one under a big time
coach….an assistant from the sec…..or coordinator from an offensive minded
school.
Then pull out the stops at the games and make them fun again. Your team won’t
win many games but bring in a promoter who can make them fun again.
Promote the new attitude….but it all begins with the head coach. Whoever hired
the last 5 coaches needs their heads examined.
Get a new AD!!!!!! Self can run the bball himself….he’s able to do it all so the
AD should focus on one thing…..football.
Next shoot up that stadium….bomb it….pay isis to bomb it….
BUT YOUR SCHOOL IS ESSENTIALLY BROKE. THANKS BROWNIE.
YOUR RANKING ARE GOING DOWN. KANSAS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
WHO ONCE CAME TO KU ARE LEAVING THE STATE (SEE NUMBER OF KANSAS
STUDENTS NOW AT MU!!!!!) then blow up the admin building and start from
scratch.
But instead of these contracts paying coaches long after they left use your freaking
head.
Then let MU beat your brains in at arrowhead and walk away with a million
bucks…..if not …set up a lemonade stand in front of the jerk fambroughs bench
and sell lemonade and cry yourself a river for the next 50 yeaars.
Good luck. You’ll need it.
MU left you in the mud you losers. Come to Columbia and see what a great/
growing/and top ranked university looks like. See the money gushing into the
university and wish it was that way at KU. Think about how Missouri has one of the
largest national fan bases in the nation and ku fan base consists of Lawrence/
overland park and Desoto and topuka!
Think of the 600 million in the bank mu has for athletic facilities and the
massive growth that is going on in Columbia.
Then be jealous that us tigers left you hawks in a ditch you can’t get out of…ever!
Or just hire another fat rotund big a$$ coach and do with what you have!!!!!!!
Didn’t I read somewhere that MU’s enrollment numbers are taking a bit of a hit?
was in Columbia for meeting last week.
lack of housing is a major problem right now. Because of that
they are having to restrtict enrollments but the school is
doing phenomenol. More out of state students than ever
before which means bigger income for tuitions.
MU will neverhave aproblem…its their growth that they’re
having problems keeping up with.
And I saw some of the new dorms being built….absolutely
beautiful!
Don’t worry about MU guy…itslike a casino…but they’re
greedy people running the school.
Memorial Stadium is and should be very embarrassing for KU alumni and fans. There are at least two stadiums in the MIAA that are better than KU’s. That shouldn’t be the case, but the stadiums at Pitt State and Northwest Missouri are better. And you can make an argument that Central Missouri and Missouri Western have par stadiums. I will state that until they renovate or get a new stadium, KU will never be anything in football.
The stadium didn’t seem to be an issue when KU won the Orange Bowl. The stadium is not the reason Turner Gill and Charlie Weis both were awful hires. KU is recovering from those horrible decisions and that’s why they didn’t win a game last year, not because Memorial Stadium isn’t fantastic.
I would never admit to hiring Weis. I would flat out lie any time someone asked about it: “What, Charlie Weis? Nonononono! We’d have to be brain damaged to hire him. No, that’s a scurrilous rumor started by MU.”
You repeat the lie enough, you’ll come to believe it. After that your sincerity will cause the rest of the world will believe it, too.
A new stadium would be a good starting point. Recruits don’t want to play in a dump.
they don’t have the money barry. This university is dried up. Basketball can’t
drive the money flow…they’d have to increase tuition and income but they
can’t right now especially with limited funding coming from the state.
Barry….when recruits walk into that stadium they see a hole. Something
must be done or ku will be kicked out of the league eventually when the
texas/Oklahoma teams decide to take off!
Getting rid of the football program at ku is the best idea I’ve heard.
As per NCAA rules, KU would have to drop out of the top tier of conferences and join something like the Missouri Valley.
The last time KU football excited Kerouac was in 1967 when Pepper Rodgers arrived and led the Jayhawks to the ’69 Orange Bowl – the same (and last) year the formerly Chiefs now swiss pro sample had any success same, aster*sk designated though it be.
Why would anyone ever want to come to Kansas to play football? Same reason no one ever goes to Nebraska to play basketball: like a bad suit, an threadbare history each in terms success. Brief upticks as Rodgers late 1960’s/early 70’s (ditto a Vince Gibson at Kansas State same era & Bill Snyder more recent times) were/are moreso aberrations.
Q: Who will be first to enjoy any measure of success – the Jayhawks or the swiss?
A: Nod a bad 1970 movie same – ‘Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?’ -neither.
🙂
My money would be on the Chiefs. At least the NFL is set up to at least give all teams a chance. College football is set up for the blue bloods.
How does a better football team/stadium make a university better at its core purpose?
They should run the triple option as envisioned by Georgia Tech and Navy.
All other Big XII teams are spread or pro-style. There are few teams who run any sort of option, aside from Baylor and TCU running the veer-option occasionally as an alternative to their pass first offense. Even KSU has moved from a lightning fast option attack to a plodding run-from-the-shotgun approach.
Run a dedicated triple option. Recruit skill players that can be interchangeable as H backs or QBs. Offer scholarships to QBs who were offered by bigger schools to play DB. The triple option will nullify the size advantage KU gives up to the Texas’ and Oklahomas of the world.
This strategy would be good for at least 5-5.
They need to hire Mike Singletary of the 1985 bears to coach. He will turn it around. He went to Baylor, can get Texas kids to come to KU. Plus he is a huge motivator. The Weis, Turn and whoever the coach is now, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Samuri, he will get the program winning.