- December 19th, 2011, 1:02 am
#372333
Warning long post.
Congratulations on the hire of coach Gill. I have no doubt that he will do a good job for the Flames.
I will begin by letting you know that I am a husker fan and have been a Gill fan since he played at Nebraska.
As to the negative comments from some disgruntled KU fans on another thread, I wouldn't worry about them too much. Ask yourself what motivates some KU fan to come on here and spew venom about your new hire. What difference does it make to them? In the case of the most vocal, he reminds me of a KU poster that despised Gill for being openly Christian. It was thinly veiled, but if you read his posts here, you can pick up on it. Plus as you will find, much of what he has posted is blatantly false. Please judge Gill on his merits not on the false witness of others.
For background. Gill was QB at Nebraska in the early 80's leading one of the most dominating offenses of the decade. Was 3rd in the Heisman voting while having the Heisman winner lined up 5-7 yards behind him. He played Canadian ball, but ended his career after experiencing several concussions. He spent a year or two in the minors with the Indians organization (playing SS, IIRC). He eventually joined the Nebraska staff and became QB coach. He coached one Heisman runner up and one Heisman winner as their position coach.
He coached under his mentor (and best man at his wedding) Tom Osborne and also under Frank Solich. Turner was made Assistant Head coach in his last year under Solich. He was retained by Coach Bill Callahan, but left after one year to pursue a head coaching gig, but finding no position, took one with the Packers. After one year he was hired as the head man at Buffalo.
At Buffalo, Gill took what was regarded as the one of the worst teams in FBS and in three years took that team to a conference championship, beating previously unbeaten and ranked Ball State in the Conference title game. This team went to the first bowl game ever for UB (They had been invited in the 50's to a bowl but declined the invitation since the bowl would not let the two African-American members of the team play). The following year they started a true soph with limited experience at QB and lost their returning 3000 plus career yard rusher to a season-ending injury one week before their first game and went 5-7. They improved in nearly every statistical measure that year except TO margin. They lost several close games.
Gill then took the job at KU, taking over for a coach that many fans regarded as one of the best KU had had. That coach was fired after accusations of abusive behavior surfaced. Despite the fact that Mangino had one only one conference game that year and his team lost 7 straight games, many fans still were unhappy that he was let go. Gill came into an environment were players were motivated by embarrassment and ridicule for mistakes. KU lost to graduation, one of their best QB's ever and two NFL caliber WR's from Mangino's last team. They had run a pass heavy spread under Mangino. Gill also converted leading rusher from the previous year (more of a bruising type back) to LB and eventually to DE. Many didn't like this but he was better suited to be either a DE/LB or FB.
Gill redshirted nearly everyone in the recruiting class from the transition year. Gill appeared to be on a four year building project approach as there was very little interest shown in Juco players. This last year KU had one of the youngest two deeps in the country.
In year one, KU started on a sour note, losing to an FCS team 9-3. They finished the year with 3 wins. One came against a ranked (at the time) Georgia Tech squad, one against a hapless New Mexico State and an amazing comeback scoring 35 points in the fourth quarter to beat Colorado 52-45. The Athletic director resigned early in the season after a ticket scandal in which he was not implicated and some other things.
In year two, the Jayhawks beat FCS McNeese State and eventual MAC champ NIU, but then lost the rest including a blowing a 20 point lead late against Baylor. The defense was awful all year, the worst in FBS. The offense started out OK, but ended up not doing well either. Some of that probably had to do with playing from behind so much and being a team better suited to running the ball and using play action. It should be noted that KU played the second toughest schedule in the FBS with one of the youngest teams in the FBS after losing their DC in July after he was diagnosed with cancer.
While the KU teams were not very good, for many reasons, I think that he went into a situation where he was set up to fail. That said, the Buffalo teams were much better on offense than on defense, so that is one area of concern. However, at Buffalo he did fire a couple of defensive coaches in an effort to improve the product.
As to recruiting, Gill is an excellent recruiter. He will recruit speed and explosiveness. He will recruit nationwide. At Buffalo, he brought in players from GA, FL, NC, CA, TX. His buffalo classes weren't always ranked as high as other MAC schools. He will take some academic risk players and some that don't have as much interest due to junior year injuries.
Sorry for the long post, but thought you might like some background.
Congratulations on the hire of coach Gill. I have no doubt that he will do a good job for the Flames.
I will begin by letting you know that I am a husker fan and have been a Gill fan since he played at Nebraska.
As to the negative comments from some disgruntled KU fans on another thread, I wouldn't worry about them too much. Ask yourself what motivates some KU fan to come on here and spew venom about your new hire. What difference does it make to them? In the case of the most vocal, he reminds me of a KU poster that despised Gill for being openly Christian. It was thinly veiled, but if you read his posts here, you can pick up on it. Plus as you will find, much of what he has posted is blatantly false. Please judge Gill on his merits not on the false witness of others.
For background. Gill was QB at Nebraska in the early 80's leading one of the most dominating offenses of the decade. Was 3rd in the Heisman voting while having the Heisman winner lined up 5-7 yards behind him. He played Canadian ball, but ended his career after experiencing several concussions. He spent a year or two in the minors with the Indians organization (playing SS, IIRC). He eventually joined the Nebraska staff and became QB coach. He coached one Heisman runner up and one Heisman winner as their position coach.
He coached under his mentor (and best man at his wedding) Tom Osborne and also under Frank Solich. Turner was made Assistant Head coach in his last year under Solich. He was retained by Coach Bill Callahan, but left after one year to pursue a head coaching gig, but finding no position, took one with the Packers. After one year he was hired as the head man at Buffalo.
At Buffalo, Gill took what was regarded as the one of the worst teams in FBS and in three years took that team to a conference championship, beating previously unbeaten and ranked Ball State in the Conference title game. This team went to the first bowl game ever for UB (They had been invited in the 50's to a bowl but declined the invitation since the bowl would not let the two African-American members of the team play). The following year they started a true soph with limited experience at QB and lost their returning 3000 plus career yard rusher to a season-ending injury one week before their first game and went 5-7. They improved in nearly every statistical measure that year except TO margin. They lost several close games.
Gill then took the job at KU, taking over for a coach that many fans regarded as one of the best KU had had. That coach was fired after accusations of abusive behavior surfaced. Despite the fact that Mangino had one only one conference game that year and his team lost 7 straight games, many fans still were unhappy that he was let go. Gill came into an environment were players were motivated by embarrassment and ridicule for mistakes. KU lost to graduation, one of their best QB's ever and two NFL caliber WR's from Mangino's last team. They had run a pass heavy spread under Mangino. Gill also converted leading rusher from the previous year (more of a bruising type back) to LB and eventually to DE. Many didn't like this but he was better suited to be either a DE/LB or FB.
Gill redshirted nearly everyone in the recruiting class from the transition year. Gill appeared to be on a four year building project approach as there was very little interest shown in Juco players. This last year KU had one of the youngest two deeps in the country.
In year one, KU started on a sour note, losing to an FCS team 9-3. They finished the year with 3 wins. One came against a ranked (at the time) Georgia Tech squad, one against a hapless New Mexico State and an amazing comeback scoring 35 points in the fourth quarter to beat Colorado 52-45. The Athletic director resigned early in the season after a ticket scandal in which he was not implicated and some other things.
In year two, the Jayhawks beat FCS McNeese State and eventual MAC champ NIU, but then lost the rest including a blowing a 20 point lead late against Baylor. The defense was awful all year, the worst in FBS. The offense started out OK, but ended up not doing well either. Some of that probably had to do with playing from behind so much and being a team better suited to running the ball and using play action. It should be noted that KU played the second toughest schedule in the FBS with one of the youngest teams in the FBS after losing their DC in July after he was diagnosed with cancer.
While the KU teams were not very good, for many reasons, I think that he went into a situation where he was set up to fail. That said, the Buffalo teams were much better on offense than on defense, so that is one area of concern. However, at Buffalo he did fire a couple of defensive coaches in an effort to improve the product.
As to recruiting, Gill is an excellent recruiter. He will recruit speed and explosiveness. He will recruit nationwide. At Buffalo, he brought in players from GA, FL, NC, CA, TX. His buffalo classes weren't always ranked as high as other MAC schools. He will take some academic risk players and some that don't have as much interest due to junior year injuries.
Sorry for the long post, but thought you might like some background.
--Fumble (1961-2009), RIP
and played in and won a BCS bowl (Orange). Mangino had lead them out of the desert. Lost in the elation was the fact that the only team that KU beat that year with a better than 7-6 record was Virginia Tech. KU played the 72nd toughest schedule in the country with an opponent's cumulative record 2 games under .500. Neither Oklahoma nor Texas were on the schedule that year. 
- By thecomeback
- By jmclaughlin