🏀 KuBuckets Archive

You read it here first.

God I love it when someone does what appears to be the impossible!

And not just a win, but a decisive win!

Congratulations, Clint Bowen.

Congratulations to every guy on that KU football team top to bottom.

Everyone won yesterday.

We fans owe you our respect and gratitude.

Mr. Neinas, your services will not be needed.

P.S.: Charlie Weis, please accept my apology, Coach. All your hard work finally paid off. I got disillusioned when the powers that were forced you out for many reasons. I wanted you to get your five years. I have no idea why they wouldn't give them to you. And I have made some cracks in that disillusionment. But you will be a part of anything good that happens the rest of the way in this rebuilding job at KU. I for one will not forget your contribution. You tried it every which way you could. You stepped outside your comfort zone and outside the safe moves for a head coach and it eventually cost you. But I will now always believe that Bowen's win, and whatever success comes next will always depend somewhat on your willingness to break the mold and take risks looking for something that might work. Success is always built on the foundation of intelligent failing. I had my doubts about you from the beginning, but I just don't believe Bowen could have reached down for the emotions of this undermanned team without you having tried everything else first. Thanks, Coach Weis, and I hope in time that KU fans come to appreciate your role in this, as I have.

I say give Bowen the job. I did not see the Baylor game, but I've seen improvement in our play and the players attitude since he took over.
So happy to see them enjoy a win yesterday. I know ISU isn't a very good team, but we also had OSU tied late in the game.
And, I believe Bowen will be able to recruit better than the last two coaches.
Give Bowen a conservative salary with nice rewarding incentives based on performance. I think he wins more games next year and has us bowl eligible in a year or two more. Maybe it's wishful thinking but my gut tells me he has KU on the right track.

@JayhawkRock78

I know little about the x's and o's of D1 football anymore, but I know this program needs continuity and Bowen to me represents an extension of what Charlie Weis started. And that is about as close to continuity as we can now get.

@jaybate-1.0 I'm not sure why you are so convinced this is an extension of weis???? Seems to me coach Bowen has changed quite a few things-for the better! QB, co-offensive coordinators, team wants to win for him, etc. Bowen was quick to point out what he's learned from Mangino, no mention of Weis. He, of course, can't change much at this late day, but his changes have been a plus. Jmo

Sorry I didn't mention Weis since you credited his work. Perhaps I didn't give him enough credit but I NEVER understood his "pile of cr*p comment" referring to his existing team.

For starters I will say I was pissed Mangino got canned (just like Leach at TT) thanks to the wussification of America-let alone it happened in NCAA football. I took bigger lumps than what I read about and all I took from those episodes were "I've got to do better so I don't let my team mates down."

I saw KU lead and then lose to Rice here in Houston last year and I think Weis was stubborn about passing vs running to the point of losing that game because he insisted we had to prepare for Big 12 play. As if a victory counts less than a game plan. That's not good coaching with a team that only wins twice a year over cupcakes.
Well to his credit he beat WVA and had Texas on the ropes.
Anyway, I believe these kids believe in Bowen and that he has inspired better play and attitude from our players than Weis and Gill put together. Success begets success and even when you are an underdog you gain confidence watching peers or upper classmen make improvements.
So Jaybate-Maybe Weis helped us move forward I used to know the X's and O's way back in the day but not so much anymore.
Anyway-I like what I've seen with Bowen. I think these kids believe in him, are playing better with him, and I think he can right the ship. And if so, I don't see him leaving KU -ever. JMO. RCJH

I believe the credit for this win belongs to Coach Bowen and the current players. Weis does not deserve and should not get the credit for this in my opinion.

Bowen has brought energy and passion to KU football. Weis did not do that.

Bowen has brought a positive vibe to the team. Weis did not do that.

Bowen has been encouraging. Weis had his pile of cr*p.

Hats off to Bowen and the players. I wish Weis the best as he continues to cash checks from KU and Notre Dame.

Can they get Weiss to pay for the gaol post replacement? He has some cash just laying around I'm sure.

Whether we like it or not, this is still the team Coach Weis assembled. Yes Cumming is now the QB but if you watched the pres-season scrimmage and the the previous two wins, Cozart played extremely well. It was the Texas game where the wheels came off and he had a bad game that placed him in jeopardy and a slow start against West Virginia that sealed his fate; he would have been replaced regardless of who was the head coach.

IMHO, Charlie Weis appeared to be used as a broom--a guy late in his career they could trust not to cheat in exchange for a healthy salary, perhaps one who was looking to square away his retirement and devote himself largely to coaching and faculty relationship building, not the almighty recruiting and fund raising brass rings at the heart of dynasty building. He was also not someone to be ashamed of either. He came from assisting at Florida, right? and he had a respected record as an NFL OC, even though his .500 stint at traditional power Notre Dame suggested someone that did not have all the requirements to succeed as a D1 head coach. It probably appeared a nice fit, from a bureaucratic strategy angle. He at least appeared to me to be hired by CBernie and Zenger to buy them some extra time they perhaps needed to continue discovery and disinfecting of KUAD and the foundations, after Scalpingate and Lewgate, and Lew's hire of Gill. Or maybe just to buy them time to figure out the infrastructure issues. Weis appeared a guy willing to take the brunt of marking time, and of remediation and infrastructure deliberations, i.e., while CBernie and Zenger made absolutely sure there were no more bodies in the swamp, got the stadium and housing financing in order, and generally got things ready for the hiring of a high energy, high quality long term guy with the kind of brand the university could develop. To get that sort of a guy, one logically would have had to undertake and complete the remediation process. Private 501.c3 athletic departments and related foundations appear to comprise an organizational complex built up in a regulatory grey area floating on possible legal ambiguities of unknown extent that tempt abuse. It might have taken several years after Scalpingate to really drill down and do more than take bore samples; i.e., to really remediate the situation and move forward with bureaucratic confidence.

It seems likely that Bowen won't be hired, if CBernie and Zenger believe remediation (i.e., they have discovered all the buried bodies and problems) is complete and they are at long last ready to move forward with the phase of creating the long term program, of which football is just one very substantial part. This has appeared always about more than just football.

Hiring Neinas appeared a signal that they were ready to move ahead with the permanent football program building. Why hire Neinas if the swamp weren't remediated? But as long as the football program lacks first rate housing to attract recruits, and first rate locker rooms, also, for the same purpose, they might have a struggle landing the right coach. Stadium size appears largely irrelevant in the media-gaming-shoe complex age IMHO, especially with a basketball program that lays its share of golden eggs, also. But improving the

For this reason, hiring Bowen, if they trust him to keep NOT cheating in recruiting so as to advance his career (apparently a big temptation for young coaches, or coaches that are in the first third of their careers and getting probably their only shot at headcoaching at a D1 major they are likely to get), then Bowen could be an expedient step to take. Use him for two years, while the new housing gets built, then with it all fresh and pretty, get back to Neinas. Or if he proves a recruiting wunderkind, move forward with him.

Eventual action would probably significantly depend on whether the marquis coach would be expected to rather control the specification of the housing or would rather have it in the ground already.

Interesting situation, regardless.

@Crimsonorblue22

I am not sure how you are able to look at this as not an extension of what Weis started????????????????????????????????

@jaybate-1.0

" But as long as the football program lacks first rate housing to attract recruits, and first rate locker rooms, also, for the same purpose, they might have a struggle landing the right coach. Stadium size appears largely irrelevant in the media-gaming-shoe complex age IMHO..."

The football facilities at KU were hugely upgraded and they are at the same or higher level than that of the top conference programs. The housing at the Jayhawk Towers is comparable or better than that of most other Division I programs; most people that criticize it have never been inside. The football facilities are not an issue at KU, none whatsoever. You should take a tour of the new football complex...

Football Complex... ↗

@JayHawkFanToo

Not. Good. Enough. To. Come. From. Behind.

Next.

@jaybate-1.0 got nothing more, just positive changes.

@Crimsonorblue22

Nothing more?????????????????????????????

Just positive changes?????????????????????

Not enough.

Next.

@jaybate-1.0 would you be happier if Weis was still the coach?

@Crimsonorblue22

Are you happier dodging? :-)

My happiness does not depend on KU football.

Does your happiness depend on KU football?

Or does it depend on Clint Bowen?

Or does it depend on backfilling? :-)

@jaybate-1.0

Not good enough? You obviously have not seen the facilities and don't have the facts...not that it ever made a difference to you...

@JayHawkFanToo

Jayhawker Towers? There are certain limitations there that locker stalls can't compensate for. Or don't you get it?

@JayHawkFanToo

Feeling a little unfulfilled, are we? :-)

@JayHawkFanToo

You should be feelin' fine.

Season's underway.

Global warming is bringing early snow.

Jeb announced.

Wainstein was a Dubya HomeSecAd.

C'mon, admit it.

The Drake Group is advocatin'.

You feel good....like you knew that you would!!!

Ha!

"Whoa-oa-oa! I feel good, I knew that I would, now
I feel good, I knew that I would, now
So good, so good, I got you"
--I Feel Good, James Brown

And yes I am FOR student-athletes being given 4 year rides, not one year contracts, and being given an number of years of support afterwards to finish their degrees.

@jaybate-1.0

Have you actually been inside the Jayhawk Towers? I take that you have not. I lived at the Towers and I know what they looked before and what they look after they were remodeled, and I have also seen the football housing facilities at other schools, most recently the athlete's housing at the University of Maryland. As housing for football players go, they are equal or better than those used by similar programs at other Division I schools.

I would like you to show me one article that indicates that athletic housing at KU is not comparable to other similar programs...and please, don't post the video of the UK basketball housing, were are talking football. Maybe you can find one...I am not asking for two...just one story where a football player indicated that he did not come to KU because of the housing conditions.

@JayHawkFanToo

I defy you to show me one article in major media that says KU football would not be better off with new housing?

I'm not asking for two stories here...just one lousy story that says KU football would not be better off with new housing....where a football player said better housing would not have attracted him even more to KU?

(Yeeeeee hawwww, I love this sort of exchange where we get to argue over which lint fiber is better.)

Do you see how easy it is to invert this sort of rhetoric you unsubtlely use?

I cannot say for sure why it is so easy to invert, because I have never studied it formally, but I think it is goes to the means of contriving it in the first place, don't you?

This is something they ought to teach at Camp Destabilization, don't you think?

It ought to be part of the core curriculum, don't you think?

"Don't contrive when one counter posts" ought to be a rule, don't you agree? And I suppose the same would go for thread highjacks and backfills and so on. Contrivance is like getting caught with one's technique showing. Bad form. Very bad. Awful. Leonard Pynth Yarnell really bad.

By god, ask for your money back @JayHawkFanToo, if you ever took such a class.

And if you really lived in The Towers back then, prove it by telling me the exact number of bricks used in your bedroom walls? Be specific! :-)

Conflation with irrelevant connections is another hoary technique that needs to be removed from the curriculum of Camp Destabilization, don't you agree?

Sometimes you seem poorly trained, @JayHawkFanToo , whilst other times you seem not trained at all. Which condition do you labor under?

Never mind, don't answer. It was an idle question, Jeeves.

Let's start a cracking good advocacy group for destabilization reform, shall we?

You can be the first Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. I, I, I, I will not even be a member. I would not wish to join a group that would have you (or me, or Groucho) as a member. :-)

Let's call it The Tonganoxie Group (throat clearing), even though it will have only incidental connection to Tonganoxie, as, well, as The Drake Group only has incidental connection with Drake University. Rather we will hold one meeting at a cafe there. We will talk about how terribly awful destabilization is taught for only a moment or two. About how young people are paying good money to take three day classes in destabilization and come away without a real solid education in destabilization, or with a mastery of its techniques.

Let's call a telly outfit, shall we? Maybe the BBC? Let's do so immediately after we finish our weak coffees and two day old cinnamon danish (as we pine away for some clotted creams and scones) and tell them we are sending them a presser.

We'll have you advocate for destabilization reform.

Are you up for it?

C'mon, @JayHawkFanToo, I'm just having some fun with you here.

If it makes you feel good to think the Towers are as good as we need, terrific. Think it and feel strong and air-muscled about it. Flex a little. Make a fist and pump it. Shake, pop and shoot one of your Colt 45 Malt Liquors. ;-)

But I think football (and basketball first) seriously needs new housing.

"Ram on, give your heart to somebody, soon, right away..."--Paul McCartney

Sports illustrated article about Clint Bowen

Sports Illustrated: ISU Pregame ↗

@jaybate-1.0

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

You are what in Texas they call all hat, no cattle or is it all sizzle, no steak...or better yet...all fart and no poo...

In Kansas we have it simpler...if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with the bull....

I really get to you,.don't I? One long post full of non-sense...and you still did not answer the question. You are, if nothing else, predictable.

Now baffle us, Jaybate, baffle us so more, baffle us away, indeed...it is not like you are paying for the bandwidth. :(

Oops, I almost forgot...all in good fun,. no malice intended...or words to that effect. :)

@Crimsonorblue22

Nice story on Bowen. Looks like he is trying to get hsi players motivated and he is not afraid of doing something different. I like that.

@JayHawkFanToo

Oh, my, as George Takei, used to say.

You are a sensy.

Breath deeply, then count to ten.

Then try again. :-)

I stumbled upon this when looking for a photo of Bowen in his playing days... Has anyone brought up the fact that KUFBHC Bowen is obviously a great salesman/recruiter??? How else did he get Miss Kansas in 2001 and Mrs Kansas in 2014 to marry him?? Congrats on that Coach Bowen!

KU interim coach Clint Bowen ready to bring enthusiasm to job ↗

Bowen savors match made in Kansas ↗

@Kip_McSmithers think he could win over a few moms on the recruiting trail. Kids love him!

@JayHawkFanToo

Gee, it seems like after all that you did not answer my question. Why? :-)

My first experience in the Jayhawk towers was the summer before my senior Year in an athletic sports camp. That was followed by multiple frat rush parties in different houses and they were all a down grade, and the KU dorms were a drop below that.

I lived in the towers and loved them as a frosh. Loved the training table (athletes cafeteria) even more.
But the jock life in the 70s verses the Greek life/system meant a welcome change. The drop off in food and lodging were huge in that regard. but my college experience was greatly enhanced by joining a frat and serving in leadership roles there. (Not for everyone and I've kept my son away from it.)

So. I haven't been inside the towers for decades, but I have been in a frat house and a KU & KSU dorm and little.is changed including pricey Naismith Hall. At worst, the dorms are not dumps, they are dorms.

Last spring and this summer I toured ALL the KU athletic facilities. They are very nice. The football stadium is low end but so what. So was KSU.
The program and money at KSU rose in a cycle as did the stadium.
A
Two weeks ago I was in Kyle Stadium for an A&M game. 100,000 plus.
We will never be there, and since they have 40,000 students and billions in endowments and are located in one of the top three populated states in the country I don't care. It's apples and oranges.

But we can do what KSU did in time.

I for one don't believe our facilities are the problem. We have what we need for starters. Let's build it like Snyder and KSU did. RCJH

I will add something more we need to remember.
The south belt has no winter to freeze out training, think how many people live in Florida and Texas. With just three small states between them. The summers suck but there are SO MANY kids down here playing football. In our school district outside Houston EVERY school had THREE freshman football teams with two and three strings each.
Think of the talent pool the SEC has (and I hate them).

People forget that KSU spent huge money on football in the late 60s when it S-Canned kindly, intelligent Doug Weaver, and hired UTenn assistant Vince Gibson and built him a brand new small, but state of the art stadium and athletic dorms that allowed him to out recruit KU and steal some recruits from OU and Nebraska. That massive infusion of capital in the guns and butter 60s, when KU let football greatness of 1968 under Pepper Rogers transition into Terry Donahues inability to recruit. And KU football went down in drugs and flames as the campus did too. KU preoccupied with Civil Rights and the Vietnam war, and convulsed in violence was actually how KSU laid the foundation necessary to eclipse KU in football. Gibson was discovered to be a minor monster and forced out after turning the program around to 6-4 or something incomprehensible to a KSU program that had set the record for winless streaks a couple of times and had not fielded competitive teams in 30-40 years.

But again, just as the 60s ended in the early 70s, and Gibson was replaced, and the fires at KU died down, longtime Jayhawk Don Fambrough got hold of the program, much as Clint Bowen might now, and briefly got it rolling only to have it implode from drugs and Fammer's loose supervision. KSU labored through a bleak period of a couple of incompetent hires, while KU muddled through the same and recycled Fammer once in their.

But the difference between KU and KSU was that KSU's big money became increasingly focused on finding a way to pay the huge nut on the KSU football stadium, something KU did not have to worry about nearly as much. KU only had to pay for additions and some really bad Astroturf fields. KSU had a huge stadium nut sucking it dry and had no choice but to keep trying to commit to building a successful program. Also, KSU, after a long run of being super at basketball but never quite closing the gap on KU's basketball tradition, finally decided football had to come first. They paid Bill Snyder a lot of money back at that time to move from Hayden Fry's assistant at Iowa to KSU head coach. People forget that Snyder would likely have been the heir apparent at Iowa, and would never have come to KSU, had not Frye and Iowa run into improprieties that ended the Frye regime at Iowa and terminated Snyder's shot at being a Big Ten head coach. The point here is that Snyder actually walked into a much better situation than what is generally remembered. The facilities were among the best of the second tier programs. The big debt made KSU leaders and donors willing to to be absolutely compliant to a guy like Snyder. He had a ton of talent in the pipeline that he could redirect to KSU after the Iowa implosion. Snyder, like a lot of great coaches, looks like a cross between a saint and a business executive, and he was no saint, but he was a helluva an executive type. The key was that KSU was way more cohesively committed to football success than KU has ever been able to sustain. They had superior facilities to KU and as good or better than every Big Eight/Twelve school but NU and OU. And they were willing to spend more for whatever Snyder asked for almost from the beginning, even though he was losing. Let's put it this way. When Snyder wanted to completely junk the old school logo there was no debate. What Snyder wanted, Snyder got. KU has never been that way with any football coach. To the contrary, KU had either been indifferent to, or out right ungrateful to every successful football coach it has ever had.

KU has to take the facilities another step up in this day and age. KU's facilities are reputedly inferior to quite a few Texas high schools, even thought hey are as good or better than some Big 12 schools' football facilities.

KU does not necessarily have to improve the facilities BEFORE it hires its big time coach. But it has to have the cash needed to take them up another level in a bank account they can show a big time coach. They have to be able to prove to a big time coach that WHATEVER he wants, he not only can have, but can have it in the ground and ready to go ASAP. He has to know there will be unqualified support. This is what KU has never been able to give big time prospective coaches. Why is complicated. But KU is feeling incredible pain about the nut it carries from the last round of upgrades. And when a university feels enough pain, sooner or later it forces cohesion, or collapse. KU is probably about ready to become cohesive.

@Crimsonorblue22

Love the stories on Bowen. The locals who know the Bowen family - and know what a winner he has been his whole life - are thrilled with his success. Here's hoping he can shock the world this weekend and solidify his tenure.

@bskeet I was just reading the sr stories, their favorite moment. My son played on a horrible team, horrible coach, it takes pretty special kids to go thru that. Something good will come of it. Sometimes you might not know it for awhile! I do appreciate their hard work and they have represented KU well.

@jaybate-1.0

" It's like a nightmare, isn't it? It just keeps getting worse and worse." - From The color of Money

!Screaming_bald_man_with_jack_hammer.jpg ↗

@JayHawkFanToo

Really, I quite enjoy this. I like seeing you work for me. :-)

@JayHawkFanToo

Now work for me more.

@JayHawkFanToo <=============> @Crimsonorblue22

And more.

:-)

@jaybate-1.0

Don't strain yourself too much or you will pop another gasket. :)

@JayHawkFanToo

Work for ME.

I love it when you work for me.

Tell your boss who you are really working for now. :-)

@jaybate-1.0

That is the best you can do? Post away Jaybate, post away; lots of bandwidth yet to waste and the day is young...:)

Is that the best you can do? :-)

@jaybate-1.0

You seem rather anal about bandwidth?

Are you displacing onto it?

You also seem unusually argumentative and aggressive.

Is there something you would like to talk with me about--get off your chest?

May I help you in any way, as one Jayhawk feeling compasson for another seemingly in pain?

I love you @JayHawkFanToo .

I consider you a fellow Jayhawk.

Rock Chalk!

@jaybate-1.0

3 posts? Really? Is that the best you can do? Come on Jaybate, you can do better...

I love you @JayHawkFanToo

Now either you are wasting bandwidth, or displacing, or being disingenuous about wasting bandwidth--which is it? :-)

I feel you want to talk something over with me.

I feel you want something.

But you are denying yourself that entitlement.

Go ahead.

I am warm and fuzzy and caring, even at my worn-out, debilitated, old age.

It is Saturday after a good win.

I have learned that everyone is trying and just needs someone that cares.

I care.

@jaybate-1.0

Come on Jaybate, you are no fun. What happened to the 5 post response or 3,000 word essay?

I love @JayHawkFanToo

Don't know that this trail is dead, but just in case it's on pause our next coach should be:
Coach Bowen!!!