Turner Gill... the next coach to be fired by Kansas
Forgive the lack of substantive posting over the last few days. While I wish I could blame it on something charitable or honorable, like adopting Malawi children or giving out meals to the homeless, I was simply sidetracked with orchestrating a Holiday Party of Awesomeness that ate into my time like Mark Mangino at a Sizzler. Speaking of Mangino, KU has found his replacement in the Mid American Conference’s own Turner Gill.
Ball State fans will remember Gill as the head coach of the Buffalo Bulls. Remember them? They were the band of players and coaches that fortune and the football Gods smiled on as they were smiting Ball State last season in the MAC Championship Game. Gill parlayed that game, and the fraudulent conference title associated with it, to interviews for more prestigious jobs across the coaching universe, but ultimately stayed in Buffalo. For what? I have no idea.
But Gill has seen the light, the opportunity, and the dollar signs offered to him in Lawrence, Kansas and has jumped at the chance. Kansas fans are happy, I assume, that they’ve landed a coach that can walk up a flight of stairs and most likely not threaten to send a player back to the ghetto, as well as the fact they have a coach who cut his teeth playing and coaching at Nebraska. Gill’s pedigree is decent, but his record speaks otherwise, and anyone who sees him as the fix to a fairly significant problem in Lawrence had best check their measuring stick for potential successes.
This is a coach that has a 20-30 record (14-18 in MAC play) in his 3 seasons at the helm. I will give Gill credit that the 8-49 before he got there isn’t anything to be even remotely happy about, but still. 20-30? In the MAC? That to me doesn’t scream BCS job. In fact, Gill’s winning percentage of .400 is under Bill Lynch’s BSU winning percentage of .411. Lynch didn’t land the Kansas job… he landed a pink slip.
Presumably, Buffalo fans will be weepy at losing their head coach, and yes… speaking from experience, that does indeed suck balls. However, Gill left the cupboard fairly stocked, at least more stocked than when he arrived, and the stature of Buffalo is significantly better than it was when it hired Gill. With the right coach, UB will be just fine and wondering why they were so enamored with Gill in the first place. That is, until their next head coach doesn’t get 19 fumbles and a bad case of stigmata handed to him in the MAC Championship Game. Bitter? Me? Still? Absolutely.
Will Gill be “successful” at Kansas? I guess that depends on how you define “successful”. Competing for conference championships? Doubtful. He couldn’t do that in the MAC. Welcome to competition, Turner, where assuming you manage to somehow edge out Nebraska or Missouri for the divisional title, you get the honor of getting curb stomped by Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, or Oklahoma State in the Big 12 title game. Of course, as you’ve proven in the past, if you can just manage to get there, things seem to work out.
Over The Pylon 
I don’t think it’s completely fair to tout his record as the end-all and be-all of his coaching resume. He walked into arguably the worst program in division 1 football, and started winning pretty quickly. This year he had a fate dealt to him that we BSU fans are all to familiar with… He lost a fair amount of talent, and then saw his lone NFL draft possibility in James Starks suffer a season-ending knee injury.
I don’t know if he’ll be successful or not, but I’m still going to root for his success.
Why you don’t write sentences while under the weather… Minor correction: “This year, fate dealt him a hand that…”
This post confuses me. So you don’t think he’s a good coach because his record is 20-30. “…but still. 20-30? In the MAC? That to me doesn’t scream BCS job. ” But then in the next sentence you say that he had the Buffalo program on the right track “However, Gill left the cupboard fairly stocked, at least more stocked than when he arrived, and the stature of Buffalo is significantly better than it was when it hired Gill.” So which one is it? Good coach or bad coach? Had a bad program or its on the right track? Can’t have it both ways Alan.
Actually, you can. Me complimenting Gill on the job he did at Buffalo doesn’t mean he isn’t mediocre and it doesn’t mean he’s good enough to warrant success at his next stop. Making strides at the worst program in the country isn’t impressive…. there’s nowhere for them to go but up.
When your record is Lynchian at best, that’s problematic. And more than a little surprising that Kansas would take a chance on him when there’s coordinators or assistants at smaller schools with more success or BCS level candidates.
I mean hell… Gill isn’t even the best coach in his division of the MAC (Golden) or the best in the conference (Jones).
Dang now I am going to get sucked into this… Alan I love the blog but your Gill hatred blinds you and yes, you do have Gill hatred.
Turner Gill was not a tourist who got lost on his way to the falls and ended up at UB, he was someone with 13 years experience coaching in the big 12. He was an NFL assistant coach and someone who developed more QB talent than most coaches can claim the right to.
He is a proven recruiter and turning around Buffalo (no matter how you want to play it off) is more impressive than what Butch Jones did at CMU. Thats not to say that Jones is or is not a better coach just that he was handed arguably the best QB in MAC history and a solid program.
on the subject of Al Golden being a better coach than Turner Gill… Why? what has he done better than gill? his record is 19-29 (look familiar) his record against Gill coached teams is 1-3? His owls are better funded and in one of the best recruiting areas of the nation and in four years of trying he has not managed to win a division title. Golden/Gill is a push, at best.
There are so many contradictions in this post that it makes my head spin.
You say he didn’t do anything special at Buffalo, but then you admit the program is in much better shape and will be fine for whoever takes over.
You then say he couldn’t compete for conference championships in the MAC, when he beat your Cardinals to win the MAC.