After dismissing the ogre called Mangino, Perkins brings in a ableit familiar name, but yet unproven coach in Turner Gill. Most of the old timers will remember Gill back in the early 80’s as the QB for the Huskers. Gill was an assistant coach for several years, before getting his first gig with Buffalo. No I am not talking about the NFL team, and yes there is an actual college that is called Buffalo and they did have a football team. I know it is shocking but it is true. So what does Gill bring to the table, well first and foremost is familiar with the Big 12 and the old Big 8 conference. He was raised in Texas, and played football at Nebraska. Needless to say he has plenty of ties to the region here. He is also in good shape, which is a lot different for a parent to see Gill come in the door, instead of the gigantic blob called Mangino. He is also African American which can only help your cause in recruiting as well. Now the downside, is that no one really knows what kind of style of play that Gill will bring to the table. We do know that he is hired the likes of Chuck Long and Carl Torbush, and while Long was a decent offensive coordinator, he is a lot like his predecessor in that he is very conservative in big games. Long is a great QB coach, but his play calling wasn’t really suited for a wide open offense set. Long did coach at Oklahoma while Mangino was there, so of course it would be suffice to say that there still might be some familiarity there, and that they may keep somewhat of the same offense. However, Mangino didn’t exactly run the same offense that he did at Kansas compared to when he was at OU either. Torbush on the other hand, is a bad hire. This guy is a washed up has been in the coaching arena, and his defenses have fallen apart no matter which team he was with over the past several years. Besides that we don’t really know who else will part of this staff, although if I were Gill I would keep my WR coach on the staff. The ST coordinator is someone he brings with him from Buffalo. Although, he will bring some continuity dealing with the fact they know each other and are used to each other’s coaching methods, I am not really sure if this a bad or good decision, considering we are talking about someone with no Major D1 experience. In the end this is going to be a crap shoot for Perkins. That ultimately could lead him to the buffet line called unemployment next to Mangino.
Now one of the biggest shockers of them all is that Gill has a daughter that is currently attending the land of jayhawk, and she also works for the Athletic Department in the ticket office. I wouldn’t think that this would have played into Perkins decision, but he definitely could have helped Gill with some insight into the football program. I will say that Gill’s acceptance speech for the HBC position was one of the worst I have ever heard. Makes me wonder if he was hooked on phonics at Nebraska. Just to paraphrase a little it sounded like this we are going to recruit, beat mizzou, recruit, win the big 12 North, recruit some more, win the Big 12, and recruit some more and win the National title, and lastly we will recruit even more. That my friends sums up Gill’s speech in a nutshell. Not exactly earth shattering and awe inspiring, and I am sure it left some jayhawk faithful scratching their head on what the hell that Perkins just did. Of course, as along as they are good in Basketball then essentially nothing else matters.
