Before we all jump off the cliff...

9-0 Iowa drops one at home against 5-4 Northwestern
7-1 Oregon who was being proclaimed a national title contender all the sudden, loses to 5-3 Stanford
Missouri loses to Baylor in Columbia (similarly bad loss as ours to Colorado)
Purdue beats Michigan (not a huge upset but Michigan should win that one)
Illinois beats Minnesota (same as above)

and this is just this week…I think the reality is that the level of play among all the teams that aren’t “elite” is so close that it’s really about who’s hot, who’s not, who’s executing and who’s in a rut. Kansas isn’t a team full of bad players or a bad team. They’ve come across a tough stretch and mistakes are just piling up. Now we’re a team with shaky confidence and it’s made for a big dip in the season.

I’m not ready to declare the program falling apart yet, I just think it’s reality. If we can get to the point with this program where we win 8, 9 and maybe even the occasional 10 games every year I’ll be ecstatic.

The program has moved forward under him and I still think they’re headed in the right place. However, offensively they are limited right now. The line looks poor, qb play has been poor, and the run game has been non-existent. I don’t know enough to say it’s X’s and O’s or if it’s the Jimmy and Joes.

Jimmy and Joes Kansas measured up against anybody they’ve faced this year. Where we didn’t do that was mentally in our execution. The only other area I see us misfiring from an X’s and O’s standpoint is that our offense has become far too predictable and refuses to adjust. The defense struggled early on but has made changes and looks much better. Offensively we’re scared to move away from what made us successful even though it isn’t working anymore. That goes for the x’s and o’s and in some cases the Jimmy’s and Joe’s.

As I pointed out elsewhere, he has been to bowl games with 3 different QBs…recruiting has been steadily trending upward. This season has been a huge disappointment, but Mangino has done a very good job here.

Obviously, if we continue to falter then yes you’ve got to consider making changes, but at this point he is and should continue to be our coach.

No need to call for Mangenious’ head. If we suck next year and lose to Bayor and TAMU and other North teams then yes, he must leave (and I love the guy). But I don’t tink its happening. Look this is a bullshit season. Every now and then teams freaking suck. They just eat ass for a year and no one knows why, in reality there are a million reasons why (poor coaching offensively, unwilling to change things and call different plays from the 4 we always run which teams finally learned how to stop, a shit offensive line, crap running game – thanks Warnineer, Mr. Run game expert, a star receiver who plays well but doesn’t make the impact he should, a defense that got murdered earlier in the year and finally started playing like it should only to watch the offense shit its pants and kill us again and again ,etc). This is what is going to happen when you hype KU football people. Its a coin flip. We either meet/exceed expectations and kick ass, or we don’t and suck. Last year was in between, this year was far below. Mangino always scored above expectations except 2006 when we should have won 8 games minimum and won 6 before getting out shit together and winning the orange bowl. He had a bad year. If we suck next year then yes start thinking about other stuff. But for now its ONE bad year. ONE. ONE. ONE. One. uno. une. Lets take our medicine and get ready for next year. In 10 years from now hopefully its a blip on the radar.

I said it in the game thread, but I’ll say it again: to me, this season all comes down to a faiilure in execution. We get dumb penalties. We get terrible decision making from the quarterback spot. We play a vanillia defense full of first and second year players.

We have no idea how good this team could be (or not be) if it would just get out of its own way. Colorado, Texas Tech, KState- in each of those games, we didn’t force the opponent to beat us, because we were beating ourselves.

I won’t pretend to know why we can’t execute any more. But the fact of the matter is, KU will never be able to simply out-talent most of the teams in the Big 12. Yes, recruiting is perceived to have gotten better, but how much of that is the so-called “experts” simply putting their faith in MM’s eye for talent? Anyways, for KU to consistently be a 10-win threat, they will have to be able to execute a gameplan well, forcing the opponent to adjust.

Next week at Texas seems kinda like one of those games where an upset makes so little sense that it actually happens (like Stanford destroying Oregon yesterday). But to even have a chance at that, you have to stop beating yourself.

Maybe you sit Todd this week, let him rest and heal his injuries somewhat. Let him clear his mind out. Then bring him back against Nebraska and Mizzou and give him the chance to earn one more bowl trip?