LAWRENCE (AP) — The losses are mounting at Kansas and the seat is growing hotter for coach Turner Gill.
The Jayhawks (2-5, 0-4 Big 12) have lost four in a row and face another tough game Saturday with a road trip to Texas (4-2, 1-2). After a 59-21 loss at home against Kansas State last week, athletic director Sheahon Zenger said the team is evaluated on a week-to-week basis. He also said a complete evaluation will not be made until the season.
Gill echoed Zenger by saying he won’t evaluate the needs and progress of his team until the season is over. Gill said the team is making strides on offense this year.
“He’s the boss,” Gill said of Zenger. “He has to say what he has to say. I came here to try to fix something. ... We’re going to teach, we’re going to develop these guys, we’re going to get after them, we’re going to challenge our coaching staff, challenge our players to do our plan. They hired me to come in here and try and build a winning football program.”
Gill hasn’t done that yet. In a season and a half, Gill has a 5-14 record with only one conference victory in 12 games. Dating to 2009, Mark Mangino’s final season, Kansas has gone 2-18 in the Big 12.
This is a team that lost one of Kansas’ greatest quarterbacks in Todd Reesing and three players to the NFL after the 2009 season: Darrell Stuckey, Kerry Meier and Dezmon Briscoe. So in some ways, Gill didn’t have much to work with when he arrived in Lawrence.
At this point last year, Kansas was averaging 16 points per game, had seven rushing touchdowns, seven passing touchdowns and gained 4.6 yards per play. This year, Kansas is averaging 30 points per game, has 15 rushing touchdowns, 14 passing touchdowns and is averaging 5.5 yards per play.
The defense, however, is dead last in the Football Bowl Subdivision, giving up 550.9 yards and 50.4 points per game. It has allowed 40 points or more in six straight games and 11 touchdowns of 30 yards or more this season.
Everything comes back to Gill. He hired the coordinators that call the assignments.
“I guess you can say that,” Johnson said. “It’s just a matter of the coaches coming up with a good game plan for us each and every week. I believe that it’s on us, the players going out there and doing what we’re told.”
Johnson said it isn’t all on Gill and that the rest of the team knows that despite what people on the outside are saying.
Cornerback Tyler Patmon said the team believes in itself and its coaches. Patmon is amazed that Gill’s attitude has remained positive.
“I don’t know how many people could take that criticism that much for that many weeks and still have the same positive attitude,” Patmon said. “We say it in the locker room, other coaches tell us all the time how great of a coach and how great of a person he is.”
Patmon said the team not only wants to win for themselves, but for Gill. He said the team believes in his system, and in him.
Quarterback Jordan Webb doesn’t know what Zenger and his associates are saying about Gill’s job, but he thinks Gill is doing a great job helping the team improve.
“We’re making improvements, whether anybody is admitting that on the outside — it doesn’t matter to us,” Webb said. “We’re getting better and we know it and coach Gill is the biggest reason for that.”