Turnaround: Suffering rivals getting green-eyed
Nebraska student says fans would prefer to be in Kansas’ shoes
The success of Kansas football has schools such as Texas A&M and even Nebraska feeling a little jealous. The two schools find themselves freefalling as the Jayhawks and coach Mark Mangino skyrocket.
By Thor Nystrom
Friday, November 2nd, 2007
This week provides an interesting prism with which to view the progress of Kansas’ football resurgence. Behind the Jayhawks are the stumbling Texas A&M Aggies (6-3), a once-proud program that must beat either Oklahoma, Missouri or Texas in the season’s waning weeks to be guaranteed even an invitation to a bowl game. Looming in front of Kansas are the fallen Nebraska Cornhuskers (5-6), a former powerhouse that could easily end its season with a losing record.
Both schools are rumored to be moving closer to firing their maligned coaches, Dennis Franchione and Bill Callahan, respectively, in the offseason.
Franchione has gotten himself into trouble off the field after selling a high-priced secret newsletter containing information about the A&M football program to boosters, unbeknownst to the athletic department. The act, a possible NCAA violation, has brought as much scrutiny to the school as the team’s poor performance has.
Callahan’s departure, meanwhile, seems imminent. Nebraska fired Athletic Director Steve Pederson in mid-October, citing a lack of progress from the football program. Pederson’s signature hire, Callahan, arrived in Lincoln four years ago. The school hired former coaching legend Tom Osborne as interim athletic director.
Calls to the Nebraska Athletic Department by The University Daily Kansan seeking comment for this story were not returned.
And then there’s Kansas, 8-0 and heading for its best start since 1908. The Jayhawks will be nearly three touchdown favorites when they take the field against the Cornhuskers on Saturday in Memorial Stadium.
Kansas Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony said the Athletics Department was not surprised by the team’s start.
“It’s obvious that we haven’t looked this good in at least a decade,” Marchiony said. “But if we start thinking about that, that’s when bad things start to happen. We are focused on Nebraska — not being 8-0 or where we are going to end up this season.”
It appears the impatient fan bases of Kansas’ most recent and next opponents are focused on anything but the games.
In College Station, Texas, the calls for Franchione’s head have grown to a crescendo, according to Renee Bogard, a Texas A&M senior from Kansas City, Mo. Bogard frequently sees “Fire Fran” bumper stickers across campus. On Saturday, Bogard went to a Halloween party where a guest dressed as Franchione — complete with a maroon Adidas A&M shirt, slacks, a head full of spray-painted gray hair and the “Fire Fran” bumper sticker adorning his chest.
Bogard, who said she was in tears leaving Kyle Field after the Oct. 27 loss to Kansas, said the expectation at Texas A&M was to win every game.
“Most students blame the problems on the coach,” Bogard said. “What Coach Fran did, it might have taken the player’s minds off their main focus. Us fans, we want all or nothing — if we don’t get what we want, we start pointing fingers. Maybe the team can’t handle the pressure.”
Brett Himmelberg, a University of Nebraska senior from Lincoln, Neb., said the season appeared to be a “catastrophe” before Pederson’s firing. Himmelberg said the students had rallied behind the idea that Callahan would be fired.
“It’s everybody here now,” Himmelberg said. “It’s all over the radio. They aren’t talking about if Callahan will be fired — they are talking about who the next head coach will be.”
Himmelberg said Nebraska fans would switch spots with Kansas if they could, a sentiment that even a year ago would have been laughable.
“I was down there two years ago when we lost,” Himmelberg said of the Jayhawks’ 2005 40-15 home victory against the Cornhuskers. “It was unbelievable to see the change in times with Kansas at the top of the Big 12 and Nebraska at the bottom. As a kid, I was used to seeing Nebraska beating Kansas by 40 or 50 points. Kansas is a good team, and Nebraska just isn’t anymore.”
While fans in Lincoln and College Station pine for the jettisons of their high profile coaches, Kansas might soon have the opposite problem, one that it hasn’t experienced since Glen Mason bolted for Minnesota in the mid-90s: keeping a miracle-working coach, in this case Mark Mangino, in Lawrence.
“That is the highest compliment that can be paid to a coach and his coaching staff — that other programs are interested in him,” Marchiony said.
Edited by Tara Smith
Discussion
All comments are moderated by Kansan.com staff. For our full user policy, click here.
Share your 2¢
Requires free registration.