That's a Hard RainThis is the third reader contribution since we started the policy of including our best readers as part of UFR. If you didn’t have a chance to read the others, Greinke – Jonathan Tucker and Cassel – Jason Lisk… “Mark Mangino may be facing the biggest challenge in his coaching tenure at Kansas in the following months. The former ambulance driver will have to hurry to resuscitate a program that surprisingly has greatly underachieved this season.”
Mangino is looking at a one or two win conference season this year and the prognosis for next year doesn’t look much better. Based on the improvement of several Big XII North teams and KU having to replace most of their skill position players including quarterback, which is a transition that can reverse progress for most programs for a year, the best guess is the Jayhawks may only be favored in two or three of their conference games next year despite a relatively favorable South schedule.
Conference wins seem to be the most important factor in determining a head coach’s tenure perhaps even more so than success against top rivals. At KU, even the most successful coaches were soon gone after their program returned to a zero to two win conference record no matter who initiated the parting.
This historical pattern of KU coaches’ experience is uniform and consistent. Almost all coaches at KU going back to the ‘30’s had the same experience. They were hired with the program in bad shape, showed improvement with varying degrees of success and then fell back to failure and soon parted ways with the program. Winning only two or fewer conference games even after significant success was the red flag for each coach. Some got a year to bounce back and others did not. A coach reestablishing the program after a return to underachievement has proved almost nonexistent in KU’s history.
To better illustrate the experience of KU’s head football coaches, here is a look from most recent head coach prior to Mangino, Terry Allen, backwards to Jack Mitchell who coached in the late ‘50’s and 1960’s when KU began it’s two decade string of having several All-American players back to back and varying degrees of success.
Almost all KU coaches, including Mangino, got a grace period of a season or two to get their program established which most needed. Bob Valesente though would test this patience to the max. Terry Allen’s conference wins after his first two years were three then two then one then he was fired. Glen Mason, in his first five seasons, brought KU’s conference wins from one to four. (The Big Eight Conference back then played seven conference games so Mason had a winning 4 – 3 record and a final top ten ranking with his ’92 team in his fifth season.) He leveled out the two years following with three conference wins each year and then produced another ranked team in 1995. While a lot of bad blood was flowing by that ’95 season, Mason won just two conference games the next year and was gone.
There has been an outcry in college football that coaches are not given enough time to build programs before being let go. Ty Willingham’s firing from Notre Dame after just three seasons brought this to the front of the national sports’ debate a few years ago.
However based on this argument, I have yet to hear anyone defend Bob Valesente who was fired from KU after two zero win conference seasons which did include one tie in the infamous Toilet Bowl game with Kansas State when they were at the bottom of college football and pre-Bill Snyder.
In Mike Gottfried’s three seasons at KU, he began and ended with two win conference seasons. Prior to him, Don Fambrough, Bud Moore, Pepper Rodgers and Jack Mitchell all enjoyed success at KU building the program and going to bowls, having winning conference records in the competitive Big Eight Conference and enjoying some national rankings. Each coach eventually fell on hard times and went out respectively with one, zero, two and zero conference wins in their last season. (Fambrough had two stints as KU’s head coach and one conference win in his last year in each stint.) Each of those coaches coached KU greats like Nolan Cromwell, David Jaynes (4th in Heisman voting in 1973 – a Jayhawk’s highest finish), John Riggins, Bobby Douglass, John Zook, Gale Sayers, John Hadl and Curtis McClinton. When the stars left, so did the winning at times. Again, it can take a year or two to replace big stars.
I say this may be Mangino’s toughest test partly because some of his success in the recent past was due to the brief demise and poor transition of previously proud programs of Nebraska, K-State and Colorado. Mangino won games against those programs that other Big XII teams didn’t always and he should be given a lot of credit for that. With Bill Synder back performing miracles in Manhattan and Polini/Osborne back in control in Lincoln, those are two big games that now have much bigger question marks for KU. Iowa State is also having a breakout year compared to the recent past making the future even murkier for the Jayhawks.
Also, if Mangino survives the challenges of next year, he will return for an unprecedented tenth season at KU. Lew Perkins will have a big decision to make in the next twelve months as there will be evidence that starting fresh with someone new might be the best move. Giving Mangino a vote of confidence after next season, if it goes as expected, would also be unprecedented in KU football history.
Mangino has done a good job at KU. He has brought in recruits that might not have normally considered KU. He’s won many of the games he is supposed to which doesn’t necessarily always happen in Lawrence. He’s also simply made more bowl games than most would have imagined (and won them) and out coached a few fairly successful rivals. Not bad for a former ambulance driver. Time will soon tell if he can save a quickly challenged program. I hope he does. If not, he’ll be the first KU football coach in a quarter century to leave with a strong, positive feeling overall about his time here and as a universally beloved figure in Lawrence.
We'll have to see what the investigation brings.
Some comments from media and fans so far have been that....
1. Did Mangino do anything out of the ordinary from the culture of football?
From this you could argue that there may be some things wrong within the culture of football. Did Tony Dungy ever need to shake up a player with a facemask pull, push, head slap or jab to the chest with or without shoulder pads? I understand, and have been on the bad side of, those type of motivational tactics. You can argue either way as to whether they are appropriate for football or not.
2. Has losing brought this on? If it was going on in '07, '08 or while KU was still "doing well" this year (the infraction reported was during Colorado week) why wasn't it brought up earlier?
The main points I made in this post were....
1. Mangino's job was in serious jeopardy pre-investigation. At KU, and many other places, once you have success as a head coach and return to failure, the perception is that your not coming out back out of that failure and you're not given a second chance. In big time college sports, the head coach lives his job commonly working 12 - 16 hour days. He has to pour all of himself into his work or he's done. When you give all of yourself and you have one or two conference wins to show for it, returning to winning ways doesn't look likely to most and it may be very difficult to do anyway. The idea that you can bring in an enthusiastic, fresh, talented up and comer or someone who could show up and win with their experience, why not make that change? This path seems better and easier than giving a beaten down coach who you once trusted a second chance. The days of giving a guy like Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden years of opportunity to get the program back on top may be gone at least for non-national championship winning coaches. My historical analysis here was meant to show that no one in KU history has gotten the second chance Mangino would need to keep his job thus he's in trouble - even without the extra punch of motivation.
2. I also wanted to point out that Mangino (and Gary Pinkel) did greatly benefit by the recent demise of NU, KSU and Colorado but to their credit, won games. There is no evidence to show Mangino can further distinguish Kansas now with other programs getting back on track. In fact, this year shows the evidence is against that given the experienced skill position players KU has.
If Lew sees this and just lets Mangino go and his replacement doesn't fair much better - which is likely in 2010 and possibly 2011, Lew will take some heat from all over. Mangino, as I tried to illustrate, has created a positive image based on his success and, I would say, his calm demeanor in front of the media.
Even if Mangino didn't do anything out of the ordinary from the general culture of football, the investigation does raise a good point, is that type of behavior necessary or just? Society changes and behavioral norms change - hopefully for the better. Yes, losing brought this on and it is fair that this is addressed but not completely fair that it is just being addressed now rather than weeks or years ago. But that is the way of the world and Lew is doing what he has to do.
If Mangino did something beyond the culture of football, his legacy will suffer greatly. If not, this will bring up a good reflection of how should coaches behave and handle motivational challenges and Mangino will still have to live with some indignity. For myself or any teammate who took some shots or kicks from a coach, I believe the player could have been motivated in another non-violent way. Coaches yell and scream like crazy and that seems to be enough, and arguably necessary, in sports.
Tim Sweeney