Last Saturday marked a rarity in Lawrence, Kansas for a Saturday in late fall. There was happiness, even excitement, coming from within Memorial Stadium’s walls following the Jayhawks 34-14 victory over Iowa State. Kansas had won just three of their previous 48 Big 12 football games, and a lot of those losses were not close.
After the surprising Orange Bowl victory in the 2007-2008 season the Kansas football program took a quick dive to the bottom of the Big 12 and has been living there ever since. It was not even debatable who the worst team was in the conference the last five and a half seasons. For comparison Iowa State did not even have a single year with a .500 Big 12 record or better during that time period but did accumulate over four times as many wins as the Jayhawks. Kansas football was at rock bottom.
The 2014 season looked like it would be much of the same with Kansas losing by a combined 64-3 against their first two Power Five opponents. Then head coach Charlie Weis was fired and defensive coordinator Clint Bowen was tabbed as the interim coach. While the change didn’t stop the losses from coming, Kansas was becoming less and less of a pushover. Before the victory over Iowa State the Jayhawks had battled Oklahoma State and Texas Tech to single score games. Not a bad start for the interim leader of the program.
Now nobody should be overreacting to this. Coach Bowen will still be taking a knife to a gun fight in the final three games of the season. Most likely Kansas will lose the rest of their games against teams that have far superior talent and finish the season with a single conference win, marking the sixth straight season the team failed to win two or more conference games. But more importantly than wins for Kansas will be how well the team competes under Bowen from here on out.
I will say that on almost every occasion I am strongly against hiring the interim coach into the full time position. As great as the interim coach may look, those few games hardly resemble what it is like to run a high level college football program full time. But you know what? At a school like Kansas the norm isn’t always the best answer.
Here is some background on Clint Bowen. The guy lives and breathes Kansas football. He played at Kansas back in the 1990s and has been a coach at Kansas in some capacity for 16 years. He had a brother play football for the Jayhawks. He even grew up in Lawrence. You do not get any more passion for Kansas football than what Clint Bowen has. And that passion for the program, that passion to be the coach at Kansas is exactly what the school needs.
Does he have the resumé to be the head coach of a Power Five program? Probably not. This is his first season as defensive coordinator at Kansas along with two other seasons in that same capacity at smaller FBS schools. It would probably even sound crazy taking a person with such little experience as a top coordinator and making them head coach.
With Kansas’ last two hires they tried more conventional methods, they hired the hot name from a smaller school at the time in Turner Gill followed by hiring a big name in Charlie Weis. Both failed miserably. It is time to step outside of the box Kansas, hire somebody who wants to be your coach.
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