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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2015
PAGE 9
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FILE PHOTO/KANSAN
Track and field athletes compete in an event last season. In the first day of the Kansas Relays yesterday, half the events for the decathlon and heptathlon competitions were completed.
FILE PHOTO/KANSAN
Track and field team closes first day of Kansas Relays
A Kansas runner takes off during a track meet last season. The first day of the Kansas RELays was yesterday. Today's events begin at 9 a.m.
G.J. MELIA
@gimelia
The first day of the 88th annual Kansas Relays finished with half the events for the decathlon and heptathlon competitions completed.
Senior Lindsay Vollmer and redshirt freshman Talia Marquez sit in first and sixth place, respectively, following the first four events in the heptathlon. Vollmer grabbed wins in all four events Wednesday and leads Kansas State senior Sarah Kolmer 3440 to 2974 in total points.
Colorado State freshman Hunter Price has a 75-point edge over Kansas State sophomore Adam Deterding for the top spot in the decathlon. Kansas freshmen Arnold Dinh and Lucas Shaw sit in 11th and 12th place after Wednesday's events.
Thursday's events will begin at 9 a.m. with the decathlon 110 meter hurdles and the hep-
tathlon long jump. Field events in the college open section of the Relays start at 10 a.m. with women's shot put and men's long jump. Track events do not
begin until 5 p.m. with the college open men's and women's 900 meters.
- Edited by Mitch Raznick
Kansas football's revival will take time
CHRISTIAN HARDY
@HardyNFL
Sports fans are impatient. Especially in a town like Lawrence where the only athletic squads sport the crimson and blue, it's easy to become shortsighted. With the Kansas football team, frustrations after years of patience hit a tipping point with the higher ups within the athletic department last year.
The coaching staff was almost entirely renewed after a three-win season in 2014, and rightfully so. The department needs to sell tickets again after a seemingly abysmal attendance rate last year, but winning is the only way to do that. Charlie Weis had his time to renew football culture, and he failed.
Now it's David Beaty's turn to give it a shot. But it's going to take some patience — especially with the new offense — not only from fans, but the players under him as well.
"In some systems, a coach
"I know it's contrary to culture out there nowadays," new offensive coordinator Rob Likens said. "With the remote control you can just pick it up, change the channel if you don't want to watch a commercial. It's not that way with this. This is going to take some time and some perseverance."
The installation of Likens' offense, which is upbeat in pace and resembles the air raid, isn't going to come in a single day or week or maybe even season. Not only does Likens have the responsibility of rebooting the offseason program to match the tempo of the new offense, he also must clean the remaining unusable sludge from the last scheme at Kansas.
tells them to do this, and we come in and tell them that's wrong." Likens said. "When you come in, you try to look for some things that you can do some carryover. If you don't see any reason to keep anything, then it's a starting over."
This learning curve, though has been easier for players than in the past. That's by Likens' design. Plays usually come in a short two-word form to not only save time, but to help the offense learn the system more quickly.
The implementation of the offense has been a three-step rinse-and-repeat process, which the team has been through three times now. However, Likens still has to limit some of the things he wants to do simply because he wants to hammer down the basics before moving on.
"With the remote control you can just pick it up, change the channel if you don't want to watch a commercial. It's not that way with this."
ROB LIKENS
Offensive coordinator
"We don't do a ton of motion right now. We're keeping everyone stationary just for the quarterbacks so they don't have to think, the defense doesn't move on them with the motion and everything." Likens said. "The thing you don't want to do everyday in spring is, you come out there with a whole new batch of plays.
"Then that's a whole new batch of plays you've got to put in, you've got to teach all the tiny little details of each one, and then all of a sudden you look up, you got 90 plays in the spring and you're not good at anything. That's like my biggest fear. That's what I do not want to do."
There's plenty Likens can't teach yet, but slowly, in spring practices, the offense is coming along behind quarterbacks Michael Cummings, senior, and Montell Cozart, junior, who are still gutting it out for the starting quarterback spot.
"Picking it up wasn't really a problem," Cummings said. "Getting out there, running it, getting more comfortable knowing what to do when the defense does certain things. That's the benefit of having that repeat cycle, revisiting plays that we might have only run on the first day."
Neither Cummings nor Cozart seem to have a leg up in the quarterback race, but Beaty and Likens expect to find a quarterback and have him stick through the season. But the decision between Cummings and Cozart, just as the offense, will take time and patience from the fans.
Without patience, the team could be right back where it was last year; lacking wins and lacking ticket sales, and that may put this new scheme on the brink.
"I'm excited that this is an actual competition. That's something that our position group is excited about. We go out there every day, ready to take on the world," Cummings said. "The best player will be out there on Saturdays."
Edited by Mackenzie Clark
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