Not a good week

This is the football board so I won’t go into details, but.......it’s been a rough couple of weeks. I had a pep in my step yesterday, I had some faith for the football game.

Hate to sound like Chicken Little already....but jeepers, are we ever gonna get out of this football hole?

Yesterday I was chatting w a friend and he reminded me of how Papa Bill Snyder turned around the KSU Program. They used to STINK. BAD!!!! Anybody but me recall Vince Gibson and “we gonna win”? Showing my age.

Bummer......not sure there are any cupcakier cupcakes we can schedule. Cupcakes are wiping our bowl clean.

Maybe I’ll cheer myself up and watch another funeral— R.I.P. Aretha and Senator McCain. (I know....not funny).

WSG.

The funeral comment was a poor attempt at humor, so before anyone gets a burr under their saddle....no disrespect was/is intended toward either “the Queen of Soul” or Senator McCain.

Although I didn't agree with his politics, but my flag is half staff. Although I didn't listen to her as much as I should have, my Pandora has been on Aretha all week. Now I guess I'll start "making arrangements" for KU football this season. Whadda think, a quiet burial or cremation?

RC

Your plan makes good sense, HE. If we are destined to go 0 fer “n”.......let’s start planning.

I’ve always offered to lend my “old girl can’t jump, but I can take up space AND I have 5 fouls to give (even a flagrant or two....if I can do a “Gracie-boy Allen” trip when someone goes by....lord knows I’d never be able to catch someone!) and 4 years of eligibility AND I can walk on, so I’m free” services to HCBS.

Perhaps I should ponder my utility to HCDB. He may “want” me more than Coach Self.

Sister sasnaK.....we need to be getting our McCarthy Hall housemother apps in soon!!!!

Rock Chalk! WSG.

You're fine, Wheatie. I like your sense of humor! Sometimes it's a welcome relief to show a bit of levity.

No offense taken Wheaty. The McCain funeral world tour did get a little tiresome. Reminded me of the old SNL bit, "This just in, Generailssimo Francisco Franco is STILL dead."

Regarding football, I too like Beaty, but he's clearly not up to the job. My concern has always been how a team possibly digs itself out of a hole as deep as we're in. While we're enjoying record-breaking happenings in football (13 consecutive conference championships, etc.) we're getting into similar record areas in terms of worst football programs ever.

I'd love to know what the plan is (if there is one). In basketball it's relatively easy: we win a LOT, we have a HOF coach, we have enormous excitement around the program, every game is played on national TV. If you're a top recruit, we're definitely high on your consideration list.

But what's the "bait" to get a kid to come play football. We lose...a LOT. To not very good teams in the pre-season and then we get REALLY abused in the regular season. We have a lame-duck coach, and lukewarm fan support. But hey, if you come play here, you'll get to get your butt kicked on national TV once or twice a year when we're playing a high profile team.

Somehow, even if we hired Vince Lombardi as our coach, it seems like it's a huge uphill battle. Great...we have a great coach, but we've got a roster full of guys who haven't gotten it together yet, and it'll be at least 2 years before we have a "new team" in place player-wise. In the meantime, the losses and lack of fan support will continue.

So do you fire Beaty now, and write off the season completely, installing an interim coach, or do you let him stay on, while you start putting out feelers and quietly interviewing for a replacement? No easy answers here.

I honestly think, at this point, we are so bad, and the program is so embarrassing, that drastic measures are needed if we are to climb back to respectability in under 7 years.

The solution - An immediate change of focus and $$$$$$$.

We have zero credibility to hire any new coach and with a straight face suggest to any recruit that we can be trusted to put them in a good situation. Long should fire the HC, and announce an immediate plan to bring KU back to competitiveness (it's too much to actually ask to be a ranked team - just competitive would be a realistic improvement).

KU needs to commit to build a world class stadium, and designs/renderings need to be prepared ASAP. The renderings I saw from Zenger's project looked like a goofy red/white/blue state fair, not a football facility that would impress recruits. Get real.

Over pay drastically for a name coach, and let him sell the future. My biggest concern is whether any good coach would actually consider KU at this point, regardless of money (though everyone has their price).

I can't fathom how we got this bad. We were awful when I was there, but still not the embarrassment that we are now. It was actually fun to go to a game, as opposed to now where we attract less than 10,000 fans. How pathetic.

Let's get the train moving, unload the bad cargo, and get this program back on track.

This also is just getting awkward. Beatty knows he's gone, his wife and kids know, the players know, the fans know, and the AD knows. It's getting inhumane to keep this going.

Unfortunately, I've fired a few people in my life, but what I've found is that it's often a relief to both the employer and employee when it happens. It's miserable showing up at work knowing it's not working, and just waiting for the shoe to drop.

Long, do the right thing and put everyone out of their misery, including Beatty. It's the respectful thing to do.

Ok, so you let him go, he's got a decent contract and will be ok financially, and his life will go on.

But what's the next step. You need an interim coach. Who gets served that poop sandwich?

Then onto the "next" coach. I agree, you have to offer the world on a platter and enough cash to choke an elephant. But who takes that deal, and how can we be convinced that a guy who takes the job for the money will be committed to turning things around, and not just cashing big checks. Think about it, there's literally NO downside to that deal. Get paid a zillion bucks and go 0-12 for a couple years...you didn't do any worse than anybody else and in the meantime your only concern is how to transfer your solid gold yacht from Lake Perry to the Bahamas.

It would be nice if we could go back to a former player or coach who's had success and have them commit to rebuilding things, but who's the football program's "Danny Manning"? I don't think there is one. The last successful coach we had was Mangino and he's a total headcase (I was done with him when he got tossed out of a LHS game for arguing with the refs while watching his son play).

I agree that spending a ton on facilities and making a huge financial investment to the program is probably necessary, but this isn't the NFL and it's a lot harder to just "buy" a team like you can in the pros when you're starting from scratch.

No easy answer and I agree that 7 years might be needed to get to a team that can play .500 ball.

Option 1 and 2 have serious collateral consequences. If conferences continue to consolidate, and football continues to be the sport that drives the most revenue, we are at grave risk of ending up in some podunk second tier conference. As great as KU hoops is, even Self would struggle to recruit if we're in the MAC, Mountain West, or worse, notwithstanding the success of Gonzaga (wait til Mark Few retires, and see where Gonzaga goes).

Football creates the revenue, and frankly keeps the alums tied to the school, and returning in person for game weekends. We are so bad alums are now boycotting. That is really bad.

Long was brought in to fix football. Get to it and give us all a little hope for the future.