ballah09 wrote:Ask some of the Kansas players like Talib and Harris if they respect Gill. They'll tell you a different story.
Under Gill, Hawk Time was gone. More and more players skipped tutoring sessions and classes. Players naturally let up, seeing how far they could push the line of acceptability.
“(Guys said) ‘I’m running a little late; I’ll just show up to meetings five minutes late,’” Thorson says. “Those things become cancerous.’”
If Gill’s philosophy was noble, it was also an awful fit. He took away cellphones on road trips. He installed a strict curfew. He took players’ names off the Jayhawks’ jerseys and instituted a “no swearing” policy around the football facility. Many players rebelled and the threat of punishment from Mangino was now gone. The relaxed mentality bled into Gill’s coaching staff, as well. According to one former assistant, one coach was caught napping multiple times by other staffers.
Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/sports/college/b ... rylink=cpy
Interesting considering we consistently have players getting suspended for missing team meetings and showing up late to practice. I see a trend! I wonder if he had a coach nap during practice considering he brought the same staff from Kansas to Liberty?
I thought these quotes were pretty telling:
“What he walked into at Kansas, I don’t think he was necessarily ready for it,” says Brad Thorson, a former offensive lineman under Mangino and Gill. “We were athletes that were trained to react based on fear, and we were asked to behave based on personal responsibility.
“It’s the right message, but it was such a significant shift, I think it was tough for him to control the discipline.”
Gill, now the head coach at Liberty University, declined to comment for this story. But more than two years after he left KU, nearly all the former players that spoke for this story say they still hold Gill in high regard. He treated players with respect, they say, and he emphasized character and growth. Some even believe he needed more time for his experiment to take root.
“The guy is dear to my heart,” says Olaitan Oguntodu, a former linebacker under Mangino and Gill.
“To blame Gill solely for two years,” Patterson says, “I don’t think that’s fair.”
In life and college football, though, fairness is often a relative term. While Gill may have been tasked with an impossible job, others believe his failings ran deeper than a simple culture change. Sometimes football is about … well, football.
WE BEAT COASTAL 
- By PAmedic
- By AATL
- By Sly Fox
- By LU Armchair coach