Kansas fires Charlie Weis

[floridianstang]

Number 2 vacancy opens up in the Big 12.

[RGV Pony]

Wow

[CoxMustangFan]

It was time for him to move on, he did all he could. Unless you're in the small group that follows KU football, you likely don't know how bad Gill left the program. While Weis' contributions never translated to W's, he made drastic improvements to the program and made this a job some good/decent coaches will want.

In general, conference realignment opened eyes at KU. Prior to it, most KU faithful couldn't care less about football; now, they realize it's worthy of the investment. There will be an announcement around a substantial capital spend in the coming months. KU will always be long on basketball, but there's now strong interest to be a solid football school, too (notice I didn't say good or great). We'll see...

[RGV Pony]

I didn't realize mangino was there for 8 years until I Googled. The 2008 orange bowl team wound up at #8. What was Gils downfall cmf?

[Treadway21]

Wasn't Stallion a big Gill guy.

[RGV Pony]

I mentioned his team in another thread. A guy KU should look at who would fit in well w that location culture resources is John Wristen

[CoxMustangFan]

I didn't realize mangino was there for 8 years until I Googled. The 2008 orange bowl team wound up at #8. What was Gils downfall cmf?

Gill had many faults (most I can't mention on a public board). It was one of the worst hires ever, in any sport. He had zero success at any level (sucking less at an irrelevant program isn't success). From what I've heard, KU is lucky they didn't get the NCAA back-hand.

Weis is an operator. Not a coach, not a recruiter (though he did put in his hours recruiting). He was paid to clean up a mess and make this a solid job. His departure is just a signal that they feel the internal mess is largely repaired. There's still obviously an external perceptual issue that can only be repaired with financial investment and W's. Weis can't help there, which is why they invited him to seek his joy elsewhere.

KU is going to spend a lot to TRY and get the program decent. I remember years at Kansas when I was there in the 90's where KU was top 10 in both basketball and football (much like Michigan State today). I'm not saying that's the norm (for any school, let alone KU), but I really think they can be decent (7 +/- wins most years). Again, we'll see.

[CoxMustangFan]

I mentioned his team in another thread. A guy KU should look at who would fit in well w that location culture resources is John Wristen

I'll be very curious to see how both KU and SMU's respective searches are conducted (and IF there's overlap).

[mrydel]

Hopefully Weis does not show up on our list.

[CoxMustangFan]

Hopefully Weis does not show up on our list.

Nah, he's done. June was SMU's Weis. Some times it takes a tow truck to get you out of the mud.

[gostangs]

Tow truck? That's a tough Weiss analogy.

[GiddyUp]

He will get a nice $7M

"I miscalculated the impact of when I threw 29 guys off the team the first year I was there,"

[CoxMustangFan]

Tow truck? That's a tough Weiss analogy.

Not really. He did address the unsexy institutional issues: discipline, grades, mutual support between the sports, etc. Let's be honest, any coach that could fix all that, coach, AND recruit was not picking KU after Gill. So Zeng decided to break "the project" into chunks. Shrug.

[CoxMustangFan]

"I miscalculated the impact of when I threw 29 guys off the team the first year I was there,"

Yeaeeah, he was more than a bit overzealous. Again, he was hired for a specific purpose. Most KU fans couldn't believe it when he threw all of Gill's 4* recruits off the team. They just didn't have a clue how bad things were.

[ponyscott]

ANOTHER basketball school gets rid of their football coach.