Rodgers Optimistic but Cautious
KU Football Sports New Look
By JOE H. BULLARD
JOVIAL PEPPER RODGERS will take a largely inexperienced team into his fourth season at the Jayhawk helm. But the likeable Jayhawk mentor has installed a new triple-option offense and has expressed confidence that his youthful team will surprise a few people before the season's end. After tieing for second and first places in his first two years at KU, Rodgers experienced for the first time a losing season when the Jayhawk contingent plummeted to a 1-9 record and a last place finish last year.
Kansan Sports Editor
Inexperienced but enthusiastic are the words head coach Franklin "Pepper" Rodgers uses to describe the 1970 University of Kansas football team.
Following a disappointing '69 season of 1-9, the football program has received a face lifting which includes a new quarterback, a different offense, a soccer style place kicker, and a reshuffling of team positions all of which Rodgers hopes, when combined with good team enthusiasm, will be the key to bringing the Jayhawks out of the Big Eight cellar in 1970.
During a Kansan interview last week, Rodgers took an optimistic but cautious outlook on the new season and was quick to point out the critical lack of experienced players.
With only 23 lettermen returning, the Jayhawks possess the least experience of any team in the Big Eight. Out of the 70 man squad, only 26 men have ever played a down of varsity level football.
To compound Rodgers' problems, the Jayhawks have lost three lettermen, all defensive linemen, due to preseason injuries. Gone are Steve Carmichael, defensive end and 1970 co-captain; Karl Salb, defensive tackle, who had started 18 consecutive games, longest string of starting assignments by any player on the squad; and Steve Wilhelm, defensive tackle.
Those three injuries plus the inexperience of the backup men, Rodgers said, makes the defensive line the weakest unit on the team.
Brightest new face for KU may be junior college transfer Dan Heck. Heck has taken over the quarterbacking duties from Phil Basler who has been moved to linebacker.
During Saturday's scrimmage, the California junior completed 14 of 22 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns.
Heck came to KU from El Camino College of Torrance, Calif. He was El Camino's regular quarterback for two years and led his team to 10-1 and 7-3 records, passing for nearly 1,400 yards as a freshman and 1,200 yards last fall.
"Dan," Rodgers said, "is not the worst quarterback in the league nor is he the best. Before a team can have a successful season, they must have a good quarterback and how KU fares will depend largely on Heck's performance."
Another new face will be place kicker Bob Helmbacher, St. Louis, Mo., sophomore. Helmbacher boots the ball soccer style and along with punter Keith Lieppman, Kansas City, Mo., senior, is expected to improve a kicking game that saw some terrible moments last fall.
Also new to the Jayhawks will be a new offensive set. Rodgers said the Hawks will operate out of the triple option which allows the quarterback to pitch out, hand off or pass the ball.
Rodgers listed the offensive line and the defensive secondary as question marks, while praising the receivers and linebackers as the best units on the team.
Rodgers said, much like the defensive line, the offensive line and the defensive secondary are hurt by inexperience in all but a few positions. The exceptions are: center Mike McCoy, Hiawatha, senior; defensive back Dale Holt, Enid, Okla., senior; and offensive tackle Steve Lawson, Chicago, Ill., senior.
McCoy has taken over the center position left vacant by second team All-American Dale Evans. Holt has been a regular starter for the past two seasons and finished third in total tackles the last two years with 34 as a sophomore and 33 last fall. Lawson is one of six two-year lettermen on the squad and is figured to rank among the top offensive tackles in the league.
Rodgers is pleased with this year's receivers, all of whom he described as having good hands and plenty of speed. Leading the field is tight end and captain of the Jayhawks, Larry Brown, Starke, Fla., senior. Rodgers thinks Brown has the potential to become one of the best tight ends in college football. He runs the 40 in 4.8, catches the ball well and is an outstanding blocker.
KU's flankers are Ron Jessie, Yuma, Ariz., senior; Xerk White, Taipei, Taiwan, junior; and Marvin Foster, Kansas City, Mo., sophomore.
Jessie was KU's number two receiver and runner last season compiling 1,301 total offense while operating out of the tailback position.
White's football career at KU was delayed a year due to a shoulder separation last fall, however, Rodgers expects great things from the former junior college standout.
Foster was last year's freshman team leader in pass receiving, catching 20 passes for 344 yards.
Kicking Game Brighter in '70
BY DON BAKER
Assistant Kansan Sports Editor
Hank Stram is a strong believer in a football team's kicking game. The head coach of the world champion Kansas City Chiefs has been quoted as saying that a good kicking game can make the difference in as many as five or six games a season.
As spring drills opened for the Hawks last April, Rodgers made it clear that several questions had to be answered if KU was to expect a comeback, one of which was the kicking game.
Pepper Rodgers has admitted often that KU's kicking game was partly if not largely responsible for the Jayhawks' 1-9 record of last season. Place-kicker and punter Billy Bell, now with the Atlanta Falcons, experienced a dismal senior campaign after promising and sporadically brilliant sophmore and juniors years.
Early spring sessions offered little encouragement, but by the time of the annual spring game the answers seemed to be a little more in focus. Keith Lieppman, the Kansas City, Mo., junior who had taken over last year for the graduated Donnie Shanklin in the "squib" kicking department and who by-passed spring drills to concentrate on baseball, was being counted on by Rodgers to fill the punting void.
The place-kicking answer was not definitely found as early, and remained in doubt to the point that he word was out over Mount Oread that anyone who thought he could kick a football was welcome to come to spring drills and try out.
Fortunately, the situation wasn't so desperate that Rodgers had to take someone from the student body at large. However, the answer did come in the form of a non-scholarship freshman by the name of Bob Helmbacher. The St. Louis yearling had performed for the KU freshman team on a more or less try-out basis and his abilities were still in question by the time spring drills began.
Helmbacher gradually improved and gained consistency and by the end of the spring sessions Rodgers was beaming over his new prospect.
The climax came in the spring game when Helmbacher displayed such a kicking artillery that Rodgers was even bragging about him in the postgame interview.
Rodgers can thank sophomore hawk Mike Cerne that Helmbacher ever made the KU football scene to begin with. The Lawrence product realized Helmbacher's possibilities after watching him kick for their fraternity football team.
KU coach Don Fambrough welcomed Helmbacher to the freshman team after hearing Cerne's testimonial and assured the soccer-style kicker he would get his chance. However, the chance came a bit quicker than either Helmbacher or Fambrough first thought. Jerome Nelloms had been doing the freshman kicking, but after making a long touchdown run in the first game Helmbacher suited up for. Nelloms found himself too tired to get to the sidelines to change shoes and return to the field to kick the extra point. Fambrough immediately summoned Helmbacher, who calmly trotted to the field to kick over the extra point.
And so Rodgers and his staff rested comfortably over the summer months, thinking their kicking problems had been settled, only to be awakened when Lieppman announced he would pass up his senior year to concentrate on baseball. The hard-hitting third-baseman led all KU hitters last spring with a .417 average, and the prospects of a probaseball career were certainly more evident than those for a similar career.
But Pepper rescued himself from the dilemma by convincing Lieppman that if he returned he would be used solely as a punter, thus limiting the chance of injury. Lieppman agreed and the kicking picture was rosy again.
The word "if" is easily overused when looking back on last season. But "if" the Hawks had been blessed with the kicking game they appear to have this year, Hank Stram's kicking philosophy might have held true for KU and resulted in as much as a 6-4 or 7-3 season rather than 1-9.
Rodgers seems to be optimistic that KU has that slight edge it lacked last year. If so, who knows, Kansas might really be back.
THIS IS THE YEAR of the "new look" in KU football and keeping with the theme the Jayhawks will appear in new uniforms when they open the new campaign against Washington State on Sept. 12. The new uniforms will team with the new Tartan Turf and the new triple-option offense in hopes of rekindling the Jayhawk firepower of two years ago that took KU to the conference championship and a trip to Miami and the Orange Bowl. Modeling the new apparel is offensive guard Gary Cooper, a 6-2 220 pound junior from Spring Valley, Calif. Features of the new uniforms are soccer-style shoes for use on the Tartan Turf and large Jayhawks on each side of the helmets.