🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@JayHawkFanToo It's not that uncommon for a coach or two from the previous staff to be voluntarily retained by a new coach to help with the transition. Reggie Mitchell was retained by both Charlie Weis and David Beaty after he was brought in by Turner Gill.

Not shocking Legendre left. Makes it even easier to sever ties with Beaty and as good as Tony Hull has been for KU, there's now not as much pressure on a new coach to try and keep Hull to keep Legendre as nice as that would've been.

@kjayhawks There is still one very big benefit to firing to Beaty midseason should KU's record this season warrant it. Recruiting. With Legendre's decommitment, KU is down to 2 commits on August 1. Keeping Beaty in a lame duck situation is going to make an already bad recruiting season even worse for KU. Firing Beaty midseason at least tells recruits there will be a new coach next year and make some of them wait and see who that new coach is and then potentially commit to KU.

The buyout is a nonfactor in Beaty's future. He's got 4 years left on his contract with only a $3 million buyout total so that averages out to less than $1 million per season. That's a very KU friendly buyout compared to the last 2 KU has had. Add in that the $3 million is paid up front so once KU fires Beaty and gives him his buyout, that's it.

KU has money to spend on the next FB coach and I bet Jeff Long is going to go after someone who will be in $3 million per year range to get the fanbase excited about football because apathy has definitely set in.

@JayHawkFanToo Inwas at the Texas game last year and KU was in that game until late in the 4th quarter. DKR was very uneasy that night because KU was hanging around and Texas couldn't put them away.

KU currently has 3 players committed for 2019. One of them (Lance Legendre) is very likely to leave regardless of what happens because of the other offers he has. If LSU or the Mississippi schools come calling, the odds of Legendre staying with KU shrink even more. Fire Beaty midseason, he probably decommits.

Hiring a coach that can keep Legendre would be a huge victory for whoever the next coach is. Neither of the other two recruits are big enough names to worry about. The Wichita kid is likely committed regardless of the coach the RB that just committed is likely gone because he said he was committing because of Beaty.

The 2019 recruiting class is currently a disaster outside of Legendre and Beaty's status is a big reason why. Firing him midseason if he's 1-5 or worse tells potential recruits someone else will be running the show and will make KU a more attractive place for recruits to consider.

@JayHawkFanToo You forgot Arizona in 1997.

I don't disagree with the championship or bust mentality this season. This is the most loaded KU team since the 2008 team. KU legitimately goes 11 deep this season which is just crazy. We know Self likes to whittle the rotation down to 7-8 players, but this depth may allow KU to have 9 players average 10+ mpg even in conference play.

I do think with KU's lack of outside shooting, there's not someone you have to guard at all times like with Graham or Svi, so defenses can pack the paint in KU all night and force outside shots. There will be games this year where the KU offense struggles to score because of that.

I don't see an undefeated season, but I do agree with the anything less than a championship being a disappointment this season sentiment because that's my feelings on the team this year.

KU's had an insane amount of talent pass through in the last 30 seasons and only 1 championship banner is a disappointment. 1997, 2003, 2010, 2011, and 2017 were all teams that had national title talk going into those seasons and only 2003 even made the Final Four. It'd be nice to go on a run of 3 titles in 8 years or some kind of stretch like that that Duke or UConn have done in the modern era of the NCAA tournament.

@KUSTEVE Dropping 8% is concerning and are we really sure his shot selection abilities are going to improve that much?

The role he's going to have in the offense is likely to be pretty similar to what he had a Memphis with Doke back and anchoring to low post. Dedric won't be doing much back to the basket stuff with Doke on the floor. Dedric will be a face up guy taking a lot of 3's and mid range shots which are not his strong suit.

If he drives to the basket, hopefully he'll be a guy who gets the whistle because he is a good FT shooter. Without an elite 3 point shooter on this roster, I don't see anybody knocking down 40% this year, this is a team that could struggle to score if they're not getting foul calls at the basket.

Driving the ball is the strength of this team, but if I'm an opposing coach, I'm collapsing on the driver every time because there isn't a truly dangerous 3 point shooter like Graham or Svi on this team. Vick who will probably be in the 37-38% range is likely to be the best, but he's like Elijah Johnson in that he's a very streaky shooter.

As talented as this team is, I can see them struggling a bit on offense if the refs aren't blowing their whistles.

@Kcmatt7 Dedric's 3 point % is a bit concerning so I'm hesitant to get too excited over a career 31% 3 point shooter who got worse his sophomore season taking a lot of 3's.

@BigBad NBA players taxes are much more complicated than just paying taxes wherever they claim residency. They pay taxes in every state they play games in plus in Canada because of the Raptors. It's very complicated for them and any other professional athlete.

@justanotherfan The OOC game that only 3 of the SEC teams play in November (UGA/GTech, UF/FSU, and SC/Clem) is not why the SEC stayed at 8 conference games. They stayed because of the cross divisional rivalry games of Alabama/Tennessee and Auburn/Georgia because Alabama is like Texas in that they control the politics of the SEC and they didn't want a 9th conference game.

The quality nonconference match ups outside of the 3 teams above is very new and because of the CFP and trying to impress voters. Prior to that, it wasn't uncommon for the mid pack and bad teams to schedule an FCS team in late October/early November (most still do that), and some combination of 3 Sun Belt/MAC/C-USA to get a 4-0 nonconference record so they only needed to get to two SEC wins and get a bowl berth.

@HighEliteMajor Keep being wrong. When a QB snaps the ball and the ability to handoff to a fullback/H-back, pitch to a tailback, or keep the ball himself, that's a triple option regardless of what formation a team lines up in. That's the play Georgia Tech runs about 75-80% of their plays.

You can keep thinking a flexbone is an offensive system instead of a formation and that Paul Johnson didn't do anything other adapt his offense from Tom Osborne, Bud Wilkinson, and others who ran the triple option a generation ago to a different base formation.

@KUSTEVE Getting to a bowl game in the SEC is easier than in the B12. The SEC only plays 8 conference games so scheduling 4 cupcakes in nonconference, Texas Tech and Rutgers were two of P5 nonconference opponents so not that difficult of a task to get to 4-0 in nonconference which means an SEC needs to go 2-6 in league play to reach a bowl game. That's a 25% winning percentage in league play and Arkansas has had a really bad Missouri as their locked in cross division game for the past several years.

Compare that to a B12 schedule that only has 3 nonconference games which means B12 teams have to win 33% of their league games to get to bowl eligibility with a perfect nonconference record.

Even in the SEC West, getting to a bowl game is easier than it is in the B12 because of how their schedule works.

@HighEliteMajor The flexbone is the base formation Paul Johnson runs the triple option out of. The flexbone is a formation that has 3 backs in the backfield. OU, Nebraska, KSU in the 90's all ran the same offense Paul Johnson is now. The only difference is they used an "I" formation to run the triple option out of. When a team runs a triple option play 75-80% of the time like Georgia Tech does, that is their offensive system.

The evolution of the triple option is moving towards running it out of the shotgun in an inverted wishbone formation where there's a back on each side of the QB and one deep back.

It's still a harder offense to execute than a spread passing system because the QB still has to make all the reads presnap to identify the keys whereas the spread, you can send a guy in motion and the defense shows whether they're in man or zone and a coach on the sidelines can adjust the play accordingly taking the presnap decision making away from a QB.

@HighEliteMajor It's a triple option offense no matter what you, Paul Johnson, or anybody else wants to claim it is. It's also an offense that requires a much more skilled QB than you claim because the QB is having to make multiple reads at the snap about which way the play is going, who the keys are to determine a handoff or not, who the pitch key is, and then after the snap, reading what those two defenders do to determine whether or not to hand off the ball, then to determine whether or not to pitch the ball if the QB doesn't hand off on the initial read.

That obviously sounds much more simple than telling a QB to focus on half the field and throw the mid depth route in a zone, the deep route in man, or to the flat on blitz.

@Woodrow Bielema finished last in the SEC West in 3 of 5 years. Apparently finishing better than last most of the time is an unrealistic expectation now.

@ICThawk I know exactly who I'm talking about, I just didn't want to post the guy's name here.

@HighEliteMajor Your ignorance is shining brightly right now when you keep citing using a flexbone offense while dismissing the triple option, yet you keep using Georgia Tech and the academy schools as your examples of flexbone offenses. Those schools all run the triple option which you previously dismissed as an offense for KU so keep claiming you know football when your lack of knowledge is shining big and bright right now.

KU already has two blue prints within their own conference of bottom feeders winning league titles and establishing consistent winning seasons with spread offenses.

But keep telling everyone that what sort of works in the ACC, Georgia Tech is below .500 over the past 3 years, will work for a B12 team while what has proven to work in the B12 at multiple schools won't work at another B12 school.

@Kcmatt7 Bielema inherited Wisconsin, he had to do a rebuilding job at Arkansas and failed at it. What he would have to do at Kansas is much more comparable to what the situation was at Arkansas than Wisconsin and he failed at that one.

@KUSTEVE If it's who I think it was, his initials are B.L.

@BShark Here's the difference between KSU and KU and why KSU can get away with not having a QB who can pass to save his life and still be competitive, DEFENSE. KState has one and KU doesn't. You can get away with scoring 28-31 ppg when you have a defense that can hold even high powered offenses below their averages.

KU does not have that. KU is in the boat of needing an offense that can score 40+ a game because the defense is so terrible and usually gives up 40-50 ppg. KU needs an offense that's capable of outscoring teams in a shootout and the flexbone and other run based offenses are not that.

@Kcmatt7 Answer the question, what's the logic behind hiring a guy at your new job that's the reason you were fired from your previous job?

@BShark I'm pretty sure it was someone who still posts there, but now openly supports Iowa football if you care to go look at one of the Jeff Long hiring articles.

@Kcmatt7 Why on earth would you hire the guy at your new job that got you fired from your previous job? Explain that logic to me because that doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me.

Venables being passed up is different than Turner Gill getting passed up. Almost every high profile job Venables has interviewed for has gone to an already established head coach either moving up or returning home. The exceptions are Kansas which Venables had interviewed for at least once when Beaty got the job and was rumored to have been interested when Weis got the job, but we all know what Zenger's talent evaluation skills are like. He also interviewed at Clemson when Swinney got the job, but that was in 2009 and Swinney had already been an assistant at Clemson for 5 years and was already the interim coach so Venables wasn't the favorite there to begin with. The last high profile job Venables was connected with was Miami which ended up going with a highly successful alum in Mark Richt and Oklahoma where Stoops named Riley his successor and didn't have open interviews that we know of.

Other than the Kansas openings, Venables has legitimately not been the best fit at any of the schools he interviewed at and nobody even at the times he was passed over, again except for Kansas said those schools made a bad decision.

@Woodrow Venables has been a candidate for the KU job the last 2 times it's been available.

He's also not getting the KSU job because Bill Snyder will do everything possible to make sure his son gets that job even if it means coaching until he dies and willing the job to Sean.

@FarmerJayhawk Beaty will get longer than CMU this year. The schedule sets up for 6 games a bye then 6 more to end the year. 6 games is what Beaty has this year.

Also, Brady Hoke will not be a factor the KU job if Jeff Long wants to win over the donors. Brady Hoke got worse each year at Michigan. When he took the DC job at Oregon, Oregon was the second worst defense in the country (both ppg and ypg) and went 4-8 in 2016. Last year as the DLine coach at Tennessee, the Vols went 0-8 in the SEC and had the 5th worst run defense in the country.

Nothing Brady Hoke has done since 2012 says he deserves a D1 head coach job, even at Kansas.

@BShark Most of the jobs he's gone after have ended up going to already established head coaches, most of them returning to their alma mater.

@kjayhawks I do like Bowen as a position coach, but KU has to move on from him at this point. There's plenty of other good DB coaches out there and whoever the next coach is can find one of those people instead of Bowen.

@kjayhawks Venables would absolutely be worth $3 million a year right now as a head coach based on his current salary and level of achievement as a defensive coordinator over the past near 20 years at Oklahoma and Clemson. He's got 2 national titles on his resume as a defensive coordinator and coached in 6 total national championship games (4 at Oklahoma and 2 at Clemson).

Venables is a home run hire for Kansas in football and has the background to keeping him if he's successful is not unrealistic given that he grew up in Kansas.

@FarmerJayhawk Here's my final words on his football hires at Arkansas. He had to fire one for major off field issues and his second one underachieved to the point that Long was fired for that failure. Clearly something was off in his evaluation process in regards to hiring football coaches at Arkansas given what his reputation supposedly was/is.

That makes me very leery about what kind of job he'll actually do at Kansas. I don't give a damn what his reputation is among his peers or the media, I give a damn about what his his hires actually produced and what they produced got Long fired.

My apologies if my dissatisfaction with this hire is based on the fact that Long was fired from Arkansas for essentially the reasons KU just fired Zenger. That's not something that fills me with a lot of optimism at this point.

@jayballer73 My preference would be Brent Venables over Miles. Venable is 47, grew up in Kansas, has already been passed over for one of his dream jobs at Oklahoma and hiring him now could keep him away from KSU when Snyder finally hangs it up.

@BShark KU isn't hiring from a position of power, but that also doesn't mean you take the first known name who says yes. Bielema and Hoke to me would be really bad first hires for Long.

Bielema is the reason Jeff Long was available in the first place, so that's a PR nightmare to hire the guy at your new job that got you fired from your previous job. That just sends a horrible message.

Brady Hoke after he was fired from Michigan went to be the DC at Oregon and Oregon finished 4-8 that year and then he moved on the Tennessee last year where they went winless in the SEC. Hoke has been a walking disaster since he took the Michigan job and would be a really bad look if that was the best Long could do for Kansas. Hoke would be a bigger disaster than Beaty right now.

Venables would be a great hire because he's a midwest guy and you could draw a lot of parallels between him and Mangino given their backgrounds with Snyder and Stoops which would always play well at KU. That would be the biggest homerun hire KU could realistically get at this point because he's not going to get the KSU job if Bill gets his way and he already missed out on the OU job when Lincoln Riley got that one.

With Les Miles, there would have to be a coach in waiting to come with him because Miles would turn 66 during the 2019 season so he definitely would be a short term guy to pave the way for a successor.

Beaty has 6 games to prove himself. Venables would be the best target out there. He's a defensive guy which means he would dump Bowen's ass in a heartbeat. He would also give KU a chance to retain Hull.

I love Les Miles, but at 64, I don't see him being a realistic option at this point unless there's also a coach in waiting named as well because Miles wouldn't be here for long. On the plus side though, he would also likely give KU a good shot at retaining Tony Hull.

After how Bielema crashed and burned at Arkansas, would it really be a smart move to hire the same guy that got Long fired from his previous job? I'd pass on Bielema at this point because he struggled within the SEC going 11-29 in league games. If he went to a Group of 5 school and won like he did at Wisconsin, I'd be more open to it then, but not right now.

Brady Hoke just got hired as an NFL assistant coach with the Carolina Panthers and wasn't impressive as an OC at Oregon in 2016 or Tennessee last year. I would take a hard pass on Hoke at this point as well.

@FarmerJayhawk Where was Self's name in the FBI report linking him to the Silvio situation in a way that harmed KU? Unless something new came out, that was Silvio, his guardian, Adidas, and Under Armour involved. The closest Self came to being linked was that KU was determined to be a victim of fraud. Last I checked, being a victim of fraud does not make you guilty of any NCAA infractions.

In regards to your moral compass, adultery, bribery, and lying are all acceptable attributes in a leader and role model for 18-23 year old men, got it.

@JayHawkFanToo I don't think anything happens to KU from this. @FarmerJayhawk thinks different so give the speech to him because all I did was take his reasoning to its logical conclusion.

@FarmerJayhawk WTF has Bill Self ever been accused of? I've asked you multiple times and you have yet to answer that question so answer it unless you can't.

If you seriously think I want Bill Self fired for any currently known reason, then you are f-ing stupid.

What Bobby Petrino did forced Jeff Long to fire him because Petrino opened the university up to a major sexual harassment lawsuit. Petrino was on the hiring committee of a woman he was having an affair with at the time and did not disclose that fact to the rest of the committee. Ethical conflict of interest right there. Not illegal, but still a fireable offense. He also paid the woman $20,000 to keep quiet about the affair which became public knowledge after Petrino filed a falsified accident report from a motorcycle crash which was found out during a subsequent investigation. That would make Petrino guilty of bribery and fraud for those two incidents. Both illegal and required immediate action from Arkansas to keep the woman from suing Petrino and the school for sexual harassment which would've cost the school a lot of money because of the settlement they would've had to pay out and from lost donations from donors.

@FarmerJayhawk Thanks for the heads up that every coach cheats. Fire them all and let the players self police themselves to stay honest about cheating then.

Please tell me an allegation against Bill Self that would force KU to fire him the way Long had to fire Petrino at Arkansas.

@FarmerJayhawk Actually no, the NCAA has yet to say anything about Silvio one way or the other. Should the NCAA retroactively determine Silvio is ineligible and strip KU of the Final Four last year, they need to vacate every game any player and coach named in the FBI report participated in, otherwise the NCAA is setting themselves up for a massive lawsuit to be filed against them.

Lastly, where was Bill Self named in that report in regards to having knowingly committed any potential NCAA infractions? All that report says is that KU was the victim in the Silvio case, not the perpetrators in the case.

@FarmerJayhawk What potential sanctions has Bill Self been connected to? Suspending a player as soon as Self is informed their eligibility is in question?

Other coaches would've played Billy Preston last year because the NCAA never ruled him ineligible. Other coaches would've played Cliff Alexander once the payments became known. If the Silvio investigation drags out into next season, guaranteed Silvio is not suited up until there is a definitive ruling on him.

@FarmerJayhawk What has Self done to open KU up to a potential lawsuits? Because that's what Petrino did to Arkansas.

And I was also fine with the Mangino firing as well at the time it happened and have never wanted him back either despite his success here.

@FarmerJayhawk And you keep ignoring the off field baggage of Petrino which included having an affair with a volleyball player, lying about a motorcycle accident to cover another affair he was having, and that he stole $20,000 from Arkansas.

@HighEliteMajor Honestly, I wouldn't take Petrino or Bielema at this point. Petrino's off field issues aren't anything I'd want associated with KU and Bielema won 27% of his SEC games at Arkansas.

There's very few coaches out there I'd choose Petrino over at this point and Bielema is gonna have to go somewhere else first and regain what he had at Wisconsin first.

@justanotherfan Actually, you can hold Long accountable for the hire because Petrino had known significant character flaws before he was hired at Arkansas going back to his first stint at Louisville and with the Atlanta Falcons.

@Woodrow His two football hire at Arkansas flat out sucked. Bobby Petrino was an absolute embarrassment off the field and Bielema sucked on the field. There is no spinning that in a positive manner. Hiring Bielema from Wisconsin was not the achievement you claim it to be. It's widely known that Wisconsin is one of the cheapest schools out there when it comes to salaries and why Bielema left.

Jeff Long was bought out at Arkansas because he pissed off too many boosters and others within the athletic department at Arkansas. This is a strange hire to me considering that KU needs someone who is great at fundraising to finish the Memorial Stadium project.

Combine that with his football hires being less than stellar, Bobby Petrino sleeping with a volleyball player and having another mistress while at Arkansas, Bret Bielema was not good as well.

I think KU struck big time on this hire based on Long's track record and what KU's needs were in an AD.

I really want to know how much consideration Joe Parker at Colorado Srate got for this position because he appeared to be the perfect guy for the job at Kansas.

@HighEliteMajor So you want to be a run based offense because it takes pressure off the QB to perform and it shortens the games which gives opponents fewer possessions. That's the rationale behind wanting the flexbone.

Somebody else had that logic as well and that was Charlie Weis. KU had a solid running game, but couldn't pass and was almost always playing from behind which meant KU then had to pass the ball to try and comeback.

The bottom line is that as long as Clint Bowen is the defensive coordinator at Kansas, the defense is going to give up 35+ points and usually 40+ points per game even against the middle of the road teams. KU winning those games isn't going to happen with a run first offense.

Looking at the blue prints Oklahoma State and Baylor made for how to go from cellar teams to B12 contenders also reveals they used variations of the spread offense to get there. The spread is a system capable of putting up the big point totals KU is going to have to score to have any chance of regularly contending with and beating the average and bad teams in the league.

If the B12 wasn't a league where you needed to score 40+ on regular basis to win, I'd love to be a run based offense because I played OLine mh entire football career and run blocking is much more fun than pass blocking, but KU isn't in a league where a traditional run based offense will lead to anything good long term.

Even as old as old school can get Bill Snyder evolved his system into a spread offense because his traditional option offense stopped working in the B12.

@KUSTEVE My opinion isn't based solely on last season, but it is a factor in my opinion. Kentucky has lost double digit games in 3 of the last 6 seasons so the flat out say they'll be a top 10 team when KU comes to town is not a foregone conclusion.

If they play to their talent level, they should be a top 5 team, but there's enough recent history to suggest they don't do that all the time anymore.

@JayHawkFanToo 2 things, firstly, Reid Travis isn't that big of an impact player and the people that jumped on that bandwagon are the same ones who are now Laker fans.

Secondly, I didn't say Kentucky would be outside the top 10 when KU visits, just that I can see it happening. Reason being is that the game is 3 months into the season and Calipari has underachieved frequently enough that I don't fully trust him to keep Kentucky that high at that point.

@KirkIsMyHinrich Michigan St. probably won't start the season in the top 10 and since we play them to open the year, at most 3 although I could see Villanova and Kentucky being outside the top 10 when we play each of them as well.

@JayHawkFanToo KU will be the Vegas favorite in every game they play this year except for possibly the Kentucky game.