Sports THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Soccer team still on the road After losing to Georgia last weekend the Jayhawks face Northwestern. SOCCER | 6B
Jayhawks forget losing streak
The football team is focusing on the higher points of last season. PAST | 3B
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2010
VOLLEYBALL 3
WWW.KANSAN.COM
PAGE 1B
NO KIDDING
Jayhawks take first game seriously
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Senior receiver Johnathan Wilson celebrates a touchdown last season. Wilson is expected to be one of the Jayhawks' best receiving threats this season.
BY MATT GALLOW
mgalloway@kansan.com
twitter.com/themattgalloway
BY MATT GALLOWAY
Whether they are motivated by excitement or frustration, the returning starters on the Kansas football team are starving to end their program's winless streak.
FOOTBALL
"We haven't had a win in a long time," said senior wide receiver Johnathan Wilson. "I think the rest of the team and I are excited to be back on the field and get another victory."
For Wilson and his fellow seniors, the drought must end this Saturday against North Dakota State if this season is to have any purpose other than rebuilding.
Senior offensive lineman Brad Thorson is one returner on a seasoned, yet unproven, offensive line looking to open holes for sixth-year senior running back Angus Quigley and protect its new starting quarterback, kophomore Kale Pick. Thorson feels comfortable with the decision coach Turner Gill and his staff made on the battles for various positions.
The Jayhawks take the field at Memorial Stadium at 6:10 p.m. against the Bison, looking to start the year like they did last year, but focused on making sure it does not end like the same way. The Jayhawks lost their final seven games after winning their first five, finishing 1-6 in Big XII play and bowl inelegible.
lurner Gill needs a victory this Saturday
"I feel really good about the guys starting right now," Thorson said.
SEE KICKOFF ON PAGE 5B
know Turner Gill has been saying he's
approaching this like any other game, but let's be honest. If he's not feeling a little extra squeeze coming into Saturday, then all signs point to him being a robot.
Gill has talked all week about the challenge North Dakota State brings for this Kansas team. He's good at that: managing expectations. But to be completely frank, anything short of a decisive victory tomorrow would be an embarrassing start to the Gill era.
There have been FCS programs that have knocked off BCS schools before. It happened to Michigan, famously, when Appalachian State rocked the Big House. It happened two years ago in the Big 12, when Montana State dropped Colorado in the season opener. But for Gill's sake, it cannot happen here. It would put a black mark on his record that would take a long time to erase.
And sure, the last nine Kansas head coaching debuts haven't gone so well (2-7 in the last 50 years of football), but that doesn't mean Kansas' new golden boy will be held to anything less than a standard of excellence in his first turn as coach. Or at least a standard of winning.
I have no great expectations for this team. In my book, a 6-6 season would be a heck of a trick for a new coach inheriting a team losing its five best players, including the most successful quarterback and top two receivers in school history.
Junior receiver Daymond
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
Patterson made his thoughts on the quality of the opponent known over Twitter Tuesday.
"jus watched film over this weeks opponent and feelin better Imao," he wrote from his account, @15staylive.
Let me make one thing clear, though. From the day Mark Mangino got fired, I said Gill was the guy for this program. He's an up-and-comer, young, personable, and in all ways the anti-Mangino. His 20-30 record at Buffalo defines misleading. When he was passed over for the Auburn head coaching job for Gene Chizik, people cried racism. If he wasn't the best coach available to the Jayhawks last offseason, he was damn close.
- he should be. North Dakota State is picked to finish sixth in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. That's the FCS (formerly Division 1-AA). The Bison are not what you'd call a powerhouse.
I'm no mind-reader, but that says to me that even Patterson is expecting a blowout win. And - worries of overconfidence aside
But if the Jayhawks don't, at the very least, pull out a double-digit win Saturday, forget I wrote that last paragraph.
Edited by Abby Davenport
CLUB SPORTS
Hockey team deserves attention, too The Kansas Men's Hockey Club is optimistic despite last season's results
BY BLAKE SCHUSTER
bschuster@kansan.com
When people think of hockey, their minds are surged with images of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, Wayne Gretzky, Disney's "The Mighty Ducks" and, of course, the Stanley Cup. They don't think about Kansas.
For some reason, wheat fields and cold steel on ice don't mesh. Perhaps it's because at the end of the day this is a basketball state, or maybe it's the lack of an NHL team. One thing is for sure: when it comes to hockey, Kansas is left off the map.
In fact, there are only seven ice rinks in the entire state. Tucked away in Overland Park rests one of these elusive facilities, the Pepsi Ice Midwest, where a different breed of Jayhawks makes its nest. These birds, born with skates on their feet and ice in their veins, patrol the rink, and any team who enters better be prepared to face off.
Led by coach Tom Prendergast, the Kansas Men's Hockey Club kicks off its season tonight against Purdue University. The game will mark the start of the 23rd campaign of the club's existence, and no one is more optimistic about the year than Prendergast, who deems that with a more experienced team returning to the ice, Kansas is sure to be heading up in the standings.
"We had a relatively young team last year. The fact that the guys are another year older, I think that will help" Prendergast said.
Kansas is looking to bounce back from a year in which the
SEE ICE ON PAGE 5B
Chris Neal/KANSAN Coach Tom Prendergast directs the KU club hockey team Tuesday at the Pepsi Ice Midwest Arena. The team will begin its season against Purdue University on Friday.
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