Kansas fires football coach Turner Gill

LAWRENCE — Two years ago, then-Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins introduced the KU football program to the high-stakes world of college football when he hired Turner Gill and agreed to pay him $10 million over five years.

Perkins was sending a calculated message that the Jayhawks could not only play with the big boys but pay with them, too.

On Sunday afternoon, acting KU athletic director Sheahon Zenger upped the ante, firing Gill after two miserable seasons and agreeing to pay him the remaining $6 million on his contract for the opportunity to hire a new coach who can return the Jayhawks to respectability.

That move will come with a heavy financial burden — one that Zenger says KU will be able to handle. He and his fundraising staff have spent the last few weeks securing commitments from donors, who are putting their faith in Zenger to get this one right.

Zenger, who was hired last January to clean up the mess Perkins left behind in the wake of the $2.1 million KU ticket scandal, knows that he can't afford to miss with so much riding on his coming decision.

"We know the history of football at Kansas," Zenger said. "It has spiked over the years. We've had some great eras here, so I feel the pressure of making sure that we get the right individual in here and the right staff in here to make sure we experience another great era in the history of Kansas football — and one that can be sustained."

Sustenance has never occurred at KU, which has only gone to bowl games in back-to-back seasons one time — in 2007 and 2008 under former coach Mark Mangino, who was forced to resign by Perkins in Dec. 2009 after an investigation into alleged mistreatment of players. That opened the door for Perkins to hire Gill, a man of devout Christian faith that would bring a positive, player-friendly coaching philosophy to Lawrence.

But Gill went 5-19 and 1-16 in the Big 12, and his teams appeared overmatched too often. Six times this season, the Jayhawks lost by at least 30 points — a level of embarrassment that landed Gill in a meeting with Zenger at 4 p.m. Sunday. Zenger told Gill that he would be relieved of his duties less than two years after Gill was introduced as coach.

There will be some observers nationally who will argue that Gill was not given a fair shake at KU. Three years is usually the minimum number of years that a coach will get to build a winning foundation.

"If I were an outsider, and someone said, 'Is two years enough?', you tend to think two is a short time," Zenger said. "But in that time period there needs to be signs of life that are greater than what we had."

Kansas fans just wanted Gill's second team to be consistently competitive with Big 12 competition. But after a 59-21 loss to Kansas State on Oct. 29 — the second straight blowout of the Jayhawks by the Wildcats in Lawrence — it became clear that either something had to change inside Gill's program or this would be his last season.

Zenger gave a statement to The Star in the hours after the K-State game, saying that the performance of the team was unacceptable, and followed that up with a meeting the next week with Gill and his assistant coaches in which he stated his concerns about the direction things were headed.

The staff knew that they had to win the month of November, but close losses to Iowa State and Baylor (which came back from a 24-3 deficit to win 31-30 in overtime) weren't going to be enough.

During this time, Zenger and his staff were in contact with influential donors. One booster, who asked to remain anonymous, said that he pledged $750,000 to help Zenger orchestrate the best move for the future of the program.

There is a good chance that KU will receive financial help from the pending exit fees associated with Texas A&M and Missouri leaving for the Southeastern Conference, but Kansas is not counting on that money. Luckily for KU, it has found that its top supporters have been on board with the need for change.

"I'm just hoping that at some point we get a return on our investment in football," said Dana Anderson, whose generosity helped build the $31 million Anderson Family Football Complex. "I thought we had it going with the 12-1 season (in 2007), and two years later, it's a disaster and we seem to be having trouble getting our footing again. I don't see any reason that the university, given the facilities and all, can't have a competitive football program."

On Sunday night, Zenger officially began a national search for the next coach. As a former football staff member at Kansas State and a former assistant coach at South Florida and Wyoming, Zenger is uniquely positioned for success in this process. A glimpse into Zenger's past brings up some interesting connections.

In 1993, Zenger started a football magazine called American Football Quarterly. During that time, he would interview a young offensive coordinator at Valdosta State named Mike Leach about his spread offense. Leach eventually became the head coach at Texas Tech, where he went 84-43 before being fired in Dec. 2009 in the aftermath of an alleged incident of player mistreatment. Throughout Leach's rise, he and Zenger kept in touch and developed a friendship.

Certainly, Leach being hired at Kansas would qualify as the type of homerun hire that donors are expecting from Zenger.

Zenger could also pick up the phone and call Jim Leavitt, who is currently coaching the 49ers linebackers. In 1996, Zenger coached under Leavitt at South Florida, where Leavitt led the Bulls to a 94-57 record over 13 seasons. Leavitt, like Leach and Mangino, was let go after the 2009 season after he allegedly struck a player in the locker room during halftime.

Other coaches that Zenger will likely consider include Mike Stoops, recently fired at Arizona, and Southern Mississippi coach Larry Fedora.

Zenger would like to have the new coach in place as quickly as possible. Kansas will be competing with other schools from Bowl Championship Series automatic-qualifying leagues that have openings: North Carolina, Ole Miss, Illinois, Penn State, Washington State and Arizona State.

"You would be remiss if you didn't acknowledge that's part of the process," Zenger said. "You have to be aware of who you're fishing in the ponds with. Now, having said that, you can't let that drive you so fast that you miss the right candidates. If you do your due diligence and work with expediency, and you put in the necessary time and hours, which are lengthy, your odds of getting it right go up."

Perkins thought he got it right with Gill, but the hard data after two seasons suggested otherwise. Zenger focused on three facets in his evaluation of Gill — academics and performance on the field and in the weight room — and did not see enough of a winning culture. Zenger also fired Gill's four strength-and-conditioning coaches on Sunday — an indication of how he felt about that aspect of the program.

These were not easy decisions for Zenger because of the human capital. KU's players had to come to grips with having their third coach in four seasons, and some of them went to the social media site, Twitter.com, to air their frustrations.

"Dang, Coach Gill gone," KU senior wide receiver Daymond Patterson wrote from his account, DP2Nice. "Man it's been a crazy four years here!"

Junior defensive end Toben Opurum took some of the responsibility for Gill not getting more time.

"Apologies for simply not doing enough," Opurum said from his account, @TOTrey5. "Hell of a man. Shame it had to end like this."

This story was originally published November 27, 2011 at 4:28 PM with the headline "Kansas fires football coach Turner Gill."