RSSBot
News Junkie
Turner Gill offhandedly referenced his team's ups and downs on Monday, pointing out they've revealed the character present on his team. But the Kansas coach's team has experienced both highs and lows unlike any other team in the league. The low came early on, in the form of a frustrating 9-6 loss to FCS opponent North Dakota State.
The next week, his team upset nationally ranked Georgia Tech, the reigning ACC champion.
The arrival of conference play meant a new round of lows, with 48, 52 and 35-point losses to begin the Big 12 season.
But heading into Saturday's game at Nebraska, the Jayhawks will be riding high with its most improbable win, rallying for 35 points in the final 11:05 of Saturday's 52-45 win over Colorado.
"You always find the positive things in any game or in practice or in life -- particularly in a game -- but you get anything positive, and this was a big positive, that they were able to overcome the deficit that we did," Gill said. "We’ll use that as much as we can to continue to gain confidence in our student-athletes."
After the win, Gill and his players filled in the public on the team's word of the week: "Relentless." Staring at a 45-17 fourth-quarter deficit and coming back to win doesn't fit many other words more perfectly.
"To have our guys respond like they responded in the fourth quarter," Gill said. "They go out and continue to play with a relentless approach and relentless attitude about going out and doing their job and I’m proud of them. I’ve got a big bunch of guys and I’m proud to be their football coach."
He's seen what his team is capable of, if only for brief moments. Coaxing that team -- the one he knows is there -- out for 60 minutes becomes the challenge on Saturday against the Huskers, for the rest of the season and through Gill's tenure at Kansas.
"You have done it. You have performed at a high level under some difficult circumstances and you did it. Because once you have done something, then you should have the least amount of doubts in your mind that you can go out and accomplish something on a football field, because we have done that in a couple of cases," Gill said. "Once you’ve done something, you should have less doubts about it and be able to go out and perform."
Nobody knows what the rest of Gill's career at Kansas will hold. But whatever successes await began when the program's 11-game losing streak in conference play came to an end.
More...
