My Road To Apathy, And Why It Is Time To Fire Turner Gill

Nor will it be the last. You gotta stay strong and support the team no matter what.

I will still support them. I’m going to Iowa St game, Baylor, and MU game still. I guess that makes me stupid since I already know the outcomes. I think Turner Gill has to be fired to inject some sort of life back into Kansas football. Any life. I’m tired of being embarrassed after every game.

bit I definitely feel where you’re coming from. I actually started laughing as K-State took the opening kick in the second half to the house. I was done cussing out the TV for the day. It was so bad it was laughable, and you just knew we were in full collapse mode at that point.

I haven’t missed a KU @ UT game in seven years, despited knowing that we’d get trounced every time. But this Saturday? I passed up face-value tickets on the 50 with a parking pass thrown in – all so that I could enjoy a Saturday evening with the wife and kids and work on a home improvement project.

I probalby won’t even listen to the game.

It’s not that I don’t support the team. I absolutely love kids like Steven Johnson, James Sims, Darrian Miller, and even Jordan Webb. I just can’t stand to watch their considerable talents and effort wasted by poor preparation, poor schemes, poor motivation – in short – poort coaching.

Yes, I know they’re young. And so is the coaching staff. But 6 games is plenty to get established and show improvement (ANY sign of improvement will do). But instead of improvement, we showed regression against KSU. That’s just too frustrating to watch.

Call me a bad fan. Maybe I am. I feel like I paid my dues sitting through countless early Glenn Mason and Mark Mangino games (and all the games during Terry Allen era) so at this point I deserve the right to do whatever the hell I want.

considering I am the worst person in the world when I say similar things even though I go to the games and all that.

Apathy is probably the most dangerous thing to Kansas football or any athletic program. I agree that we’re back in a dangerous place and it’s pretty incredible that we’re here just a few years after what was a very good time.

after 2 seasons and pay him $10 million for a single good offensive recruiting class. Then we hire our next coach, pay him equally well and then are in the same place in 2 years?

I don’t know the answer because I am apathetic like many of you.

One memory stands out above the rest. The Kansas-Baylor game wasn’t on TV, so my friend Mark and I sat in his car and listened to it on the radio. Baylor would score three fourth quarter touchdowns and beat Kansas by a point.

Did the same thing man. Was listening to that game and just couldn’t believe what was happening. That really was a tough year. Biggest difference, that was Mangino’s 5th season so in many ways it was harder to swallow for me personally because my expectations had risen.

I wouldn’t be upset if Gill was fired, but like some others, I wonder where we’d be left standing after we do? I think beyond the homerun hires like Fulmer, we’d be right back where we were at the beginning of last year.

I don’t know, maybe that’s wrong but like you say, I may be too apathetic about it at this point to defend my opinion.

I still watch the games and follow the program news and everything, but it sort of sucks the passion out of it when you get constantly drubbed like this.

For the most part, RCTers seem to be bigger football fans than the average Jayhawk fan, so if we’re like this, I can’t imagine Gill is allowed another season. You can’t afford for your football program to struggle for very long in this age of college athletics.

I was there. Man did that suck. It was my second KU road game – the first one I thought we could win. First one was in Austin the previous year when UT blew us out during their NC run.

Floyd Casey’s not a bad place to watch a game, though.

As to the point of the column – I think I’m sorta the same way at this point. I’ll watch games when I can, though I don’t go to the watch parties the local Alumni Association chapter has from time to time. I’m not entirely sure why I still watch the games – or why I sat through the entire game last weekend.

I didn’t follow KU until I transferred from Minnesota in ‘98, so I don’t have knowledge before then. However, I sat through the tail end of the Gameball era – though I graduated shortly before he was fired. The ineptness of the team now reminds me of the ineptness then – except we’re supposed to have better players now, aren’t we?

I’m not sold that firing a coach after two years is necessarily a good idea in the generic sense. But as others have said, it’s not that we’re losing or even getting killed – it’s how we’re getting killed. Mangino’s record at the beginning wasn’t good either – but the team was playing hard and as competitively as possible – I don’t see that right now.

I think Gill needs to go – there’s going to be too much financial damage done if he stays. However, if Gill stays, new coordinators have to be hired – Shealy seems like he’s in over his head, and I’m not sold on “run right, run left, Chuck Long” after seeing the offense stagnate and throw 3 yard outs on 3rd and long.

…this is why I typically don’t tend to write big comments. ;)