Jayhawks have come long way
MIAMI – When Mark Mangino went to Kansas, he knew changing a woebegone program into a winner would be a major challenge.
He also knew similar turnarounds had been accomplished before.
The one Frank Beamer started a decade earlier at Virginia Tech, for example.
So Mangino modeled large chunks of his Jayhawks regime after things Beamer did with the Hokies, like trying to be complete in all three aspects of the game, not just offense or defense or special teams.
Those parallels will be on display tonight, when No. 8 Kansas (11-1) – perhaps the biggest surprise in college football this season – makes its first Orange Bowl appearance in 39 years against the fifth-ranked Hokies (11-2), champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“When I first arrived at Kansas, it was disappointing,” said Mangino, who was 25-35 in his first five Kansas seasons before this year’s big turnaround earned him the Associated Press Coach of the Year honors. “There were days that I was frustrated and said this ought to be better. The University of Kansas deserves better than this in their football program.”
An Orange Bowl trip certainly qualifies as something better, especially for a Kansas team that didn’t even head to a postseason game last year.
“You know, they’re for real,” Beamer said.
When the Hokies and Jayhawks talk about the stakes attached to this game, they say the same thing – that even without a national championship on the line, this is the biggest game either program has played in a long, long time.
They might be right.
For Virginia Tech, this is about history, getting to the 12-win mark for the first time and giving fans one more reason to cheer a year that will be remembered as the one following the April 16 on-campus massacre in Blacksburg in which 32 students and professors lost their lives.
“It’s just what needs to happen,” said Beamer, who has the Hokies in their 15th straight bowl game. “It’s what needs to get done. Virginia Tech needed to rally around a football team. … So we’ll rally together and be stronger and tighter than ever. And I think that’s what has happened.”
For Kansas, this is about silencing all doubters, the ones who said the Jayhawks only got here because their schedule was softer than a fresh bag of marshmallows and a school-record 11-win season still wasn’t good enough to merit a spot in a BCS game.
“I don’t think at this point in the season we have to prove ourselves any more,” quarterback Todd Reesing said. “We won 11 games this year. How many other teams in the nation can say that? Not many. So you can point to our schedule, but we play in the Big 12. That’s a damn good conference.”
Orange Bowl
Who: Virginia Tech (11-2, 7-1 ACC) vs. Kansas (11-1, 7-1 Big 12)
Kickoff: 5:25 p.m.
TV: Fox 28
The line: Virginia Tech by 3.5
The buzz: The Hokies lost twice to No. 2-ranked teams – LSU and Boston College – then beat Boston College in the ACC championship, while Kansas lost to then-No. 3 Missouri and didn’t play for a conference championship. Both offenses can score, but Virginia Tech is fifth in the nation in total defense, giving up 293 yards per game, and second in scoring defense, giving up 15.5 points per game.