Cornish finds success in CFL
Former Kansas running back contributes to Stampeders on special teams and in backfield
By Andrew Wiebe (Contact)
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Jon Cornish is a forgotten man. Playing professional football in Calgary has a way of taking players off the media and fan’s radar screens.
Maybe that’s why Cornish isn’t getting credit for the prediction he claims he made at Kansas’ spring game two years ago. To listen to Cornish, you’d think he had the Jayhawks’ dream season pegged from the start.
“I said we were going to win every game, and Missouri was going to be the hardest game of the year,” Cornish said. “I just didn’t know how good Missouri would be.”
Two years after leaving Kansas for the relative obscurity of the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders, Cornish’s monster 2006 season seems like the distant past. Gone are the days when the New Westminster, British Columbia, native lined up on Saturdays as the focal point of the Jayhawks’ ground attack.
In fact, Cornish said he was surprised to find out that the football brain trust in Calgary that drafted him after his junior season wasn’t even aware of the 1,457 yards he piled up as a senior — ninth most in the nation.
After spending his rookie season playing special teams and receiving spot carries on offense, you couldn’t blame Cornish for wondering whether he made the right decision to return home to the CFL.
“I had more expectations to play than were actually fulfilled,” Cornish said of his first season in Calgary. “After learning the coaches really had no respect for me coming in last year, I had some questions.”
But halfway through his second season in the Great White North, things are starting to look up for the man who owns Kansas’ single season rushing record. Cornish is still plugging away on special teams — he is second in the CFL in special teams tackles with 12 — and the Stampeders’ coaching staff is beginning to give him the opportunity to contribute in limited carries.
Cornish still isn’t getting the carries he would like — he has 80 yards on eight carries through nine games — but he said perks such as a six-month, football-free offseason have kept him satisfied.
“The CFL offseason makes playing in the CFL one of the greatest jobs I could imagine,” Cornish said. “I did nothing. I went to the bars, and I played video games. I didn’t work. I just had lots of fun.”
TOILING AWAY
Jon Cornish isn’t the only former Jayhawk to play his trade away from the spotlight.
While Cornish stands as the lone Kansas alum in the CFL, the Arena Football League boasts five former Jayhawks, including 13-year AFL veteran Kyle Moore-Brown.
Three former players also play in arenafootball2, including Fort Worth Bowl hero Brian Murph, who plays for the Amarillo Dusters.
- Edited by Scott Toland
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