Bill Miller Hired as KU Co-Defensive Coordinator and Linebackers Coach

wherever you are consider this a place to talk all things Jayhawks…look forward to hearing your thoughts from time to time…

good name too by the way…

Bill Miller is very well respected, coached under Lou Hotlz, Ron Zook, Nick Saban, Butch Davis and Jimmy Johnson. He has deep ties within Kansas JUCO ranks as well as other areas of the country recruiting wise. If anything Bowen should see this as a major benefit to his career development.

Bowen’s role is not really changing, he’ll simply have someone to bounce ideas off of. I believe the thought is this, last year we had Bill Young and Clint Bowen but it was widely known that Bill Young was the primary. Now my understanding is we have Clint Bowen and Bill Miller w/Clint Bowen being the primary “guy” if you will. This is great for Bowen and great for the program as well.

Now with the upcoming hire at the D-Line coaching spot that I think we will all be pretty happy with as well it’s a step in the right direction. We’ll be gaining a lot more experience and it seems to me that Kansas is setting the table to take the next step and in this instance that can be seen by the level of assistant coaches we will have on staff vs. the past.

This year Bowen was the most tenured defensive coach with 8 years experience in coaching.

With the hire of Miller and the new D-Line coach he will likely be the third most tenured.

Miller alone had more experience than the entire rest of the defensive coaching staff combined. This will be a great person to continue Bowen’s development and help ease the pressure of running the defense.

welcome to RCT and good points…you might want to remind those Missouri fans that at this point they have officially landed only 1 5star recruit in Gabbert. Now they will likely get their 2nd this year with Sheldon Richardson, but it’s not like they’re knocking out 5 star’s year in and year out.

Another thing to keep in mind is there are only so many 5 stars each year. For example this year, 31…so even if we aren’t landing those kids progress is what we are all looking for and it takes about 1 second to look at this years class and see we are moving in the right direction.

Defensive end was absolutely a big position of need for this class and future classes as well. It’s become apparent that to stop the spread you need to be able to provide pressure with your front four and Kansas hasn’t been able to do that consistently for a couple years now. We’ve now landed 6 guys listed as ends but only 3 will end up there. Young, Sellers and Quinten Woods. Young and Sellers are seen as the type of guys we need in these spots for the future with Woods looking to be an immediate impact. Now I wouldn’t count out Young or Sellers for immediate PT but I also wouldn’t plan on it, if it happens, it’s a bonus.

The other three Dent, Stephens and Jacoby Thomas will all change positions. Dent is already up to arond 270 and will move inside to Defensive tackle along with Travis Stephens. Jacoby Thomas will move to OLB and likely be used similar to a James Holt where he might be used to rush the passer but also in a more traditional role as well.

In short yes DE was a need but also these are the kids we wanted as well. Mangino and the coaching staff are easily putting together their best class at KU both from a talent standpoint and a need standpoint.

but with our schedule against the South it is in no way going to be easy. We will need to beat Nebraska at home and likely Mizzou at the end of the year at Arrowhead to clinch it.

when it comes to a conference road game. Tech will certainly not be as good and you’re right on paper we should be favored but that one still worries me a bit.

With regards to Mizzou…never count out a rival, they did that to us this year and look what happened.

It’s going to be a fun year for sure and the potential is there to be special…we’ll have to see.