August 17, 2005
Kansas AD expects improvement
Kansas Athletic Director Lew Perkins gave fair warning to Mark Mangino and the rest of the Kansas Football program on Tuesday, telling the media he expected to see an improvement during the 2005 season.
More on this from the Associate Press
The clock began ticking on the Mangino era in July when the basketball-rich, football-poor Jayhawks imposed minor recruiting and scholarship restrictions on themselves.Mangino was not directly blamed for any transgressions. But he and an assistant coach were given official letters of admonishment.
The fear now is that the NCAA could come back in a few months with harsher punishment. The violations mostly involved academics, something the ruling body tends to view with gravity.
"When you're dealing with academics," Perkins said, "it's a very serious issue."
Perkins has always given Mangino his public support, and improvement obviously has been made in the down-and-out program Terry Allen left behind.
But stinging NCAA penalties combined with an 11th straight non-winning season could reaffirm the old theory about every athletic director preferring to pick his own coaches.
"Any pressure I have is self-induced," Mangino insisted. "It's just the way I am. I don't feel any extra pressure."
Please note that all comments are subject to the Fanblogs Comment Policy.
Rob Knodell said:
posted on August 17, 2005 4:15 PM — 168.166.54.11 — link — abuse?I read that same wire service article in the KC Star and cannot find a quote where Perkins announced anything on Tuesday about needing to see improvement. The staff was admonished several months ago to abide more closely to NCAA rules and the article mentioned that, but I couldn't find anything in that article about needing to see improvement on the field.