Bob Lutz: Gill was bad hire from start for KU

Turner Gill never commanded the room, never sounded like he was cognizant of just how badly things were going with his football program at Kansas. He came across as out of touch, as someone who could not put down his rose-colored glasses to take a serious, contemplative look at where he was and what he was doing.

That made it impossible, I believe, for Kansas athletic director Sheahon Zenger to give Gill a third year. It was obvious early this season that Gill was not the right coach for Kansas.

And now that's two football programs in the state that Lew Perkins has seriously harmed. First, he was the athletic director who had a hand in dropping football at Wichita State following the 1986 season. Then he fired the successful (by KU terms, at least) Mark Mangino after the 2009 season and hired Gill away from Buffalo, where he was 20-30 in three seasons.

If Kansas State is smart, it won't allow Perkins within 30 miles of its university.

As recently as Saturday, after KU's 24-10 loss to Missouri at Arrowhead Stadium, Gill told reporters that he thought a breakthrough was imminent and that he and his coaches were on the right track.

It was that way throughout his 24-game Jayhawks coaching career. He never seemed to see what everybody else was seeing. And if he did, he never confronted the obstacles in front of him publicly.

He stepped into a difficult situation. Perkins' short-sighted decision to hire Gill never felt like the right move, especially since Mangino remained popular with a lot of KU football fans even after a seven-game losing streak that concluded the 2009 season.

Just two seasons before, Mangino had guided KU to a 12-1 record and an Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech. The program was producing top-notch Big 12 players. But controversy reared its head during that 2009 season when Mangino was accused of mistreating players, leading to an in-house investigation.

Perkins ultimately got rid of Mangino and brought in Gill, whose calming influence and anti-Mangino ways would, Perkins believed, be perfect for Kansas. He called Gill's hiring a "magic moment."

But the rabbit Gill was hired to pull from a hat never appeared. And while it's unusual for an administration to fire a coach after only two seasons, this is a special case.

Kansas is barely hanging on in the Big 12 as it is. It takes an amazing coach to pull a team from last to anywhere close to first in a conference as demanding and difficult as this one.

Mangino did it. Bill Snyder did it at Kansas State. But outside of those two, it's been a long time since any coach had that kind of success at either school.

You have to go all the way back to Jack Mitchell (1958-66) to find another coach besides Mangino who had a better than .500 record at Kansas. In Mitchell's nine seasons, the Jayhawks were 44-42-5.

The last coach to get only two seasons at KU before losing his job was Bob Valesente, who was 4-17-1 during the 1986 and 1987 seasons.

Valesente was replaced by Glen Mason, a fiery coach whose nine years at Kansas produced more ups than the Jayhawks were used to. But when Mason left for Minnesota after the 1996 season, KU hired nice-guy Terry Allen, who was 20-33 in five unremarkable seasons.

Then came Mangino and his fire-in-the-belly style of coaching. Mangino had one focus in mind from the start and that was winning football games. After a slow start, he hit a stride. But then came the accusations of player mistreatment and Mangino couldn't survive the heat.

And, of course, Kansas turned things over to a "nice guy," hiring Gill. He is, by all accounts, a man of high character. And he was able to open up some recruiting doors in Texas, as promised.

But there's nothing there when it comes to Gill's accomplishments on the field. Outside of last season's upset win over Georgia Tech in Lawrence, and a remarkable come-from-behind win over Colorado, Gill's teams were predictable and unimaginative.

The Jayhawks lost some close games, but were blown out of too many others. Gill saw over some of the most embarrassing and lopsided defeats in KU history. But his message, even after humiliating losses, never wavered. Kansas football, he insisted, was on the right course.

Now, with $6 million still on the books to buy out Gill's contract, Kansas has to find a new coach. Zenger will be making his first significant hire at KU. Given what we've learned the past 18 months about the importance of college football, illuminated by conference shuffling, this is not a job for the faint of heart.

Zenger does have a football background, having worked on Snyder's staff at Kansas State 20-plus years ago and putting in time at South Florida and Wyoming.

But this is a daunting task. First of all, what coach will want this job? I ask that rhetorically, knowing there are coaches who are already sniffing the money trail. But beyond money, what does Kansas have to offer?

Facilities, for one. A great campus. A recruiting area that could be enhanced by Missouri's jump to the SEC.

But the new coach will inherit a bottom feeder in a power conference. There's only one way to go, but going that way promises to be painstakingly hard.

If things hold true to form, Zenger will look for someone who is the opposite of Gill. A task master and disciplinarian who isn't afraid to roll up his sleeves.

Someone like Mark Mangino.

This story was originally published November 28, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Gill was bad hire from start for KU."