It's Here

Ah, the smell of grills firing-up on the hill, the sound of excitement in the air and the buzz around Memorial Stadium is finally here. It is time for all of the anticipation to finally end and the product on the party on the field to begin. Good luck to all our Hawk players and may they play safe this year. Time for me to head into the stadium and begin another fun season of JAYHAWK FOOTBALL

Jayhawk Players Making Preseason Watch List

A number of Jayhawk standouts are showing up on the preseason watch lists for varius football awards. Todd Reesing, Jake Sharp, Darrell Stuckey, Kerry Meier, and Dezmon Briscoe have made the rounds of various watch list's that have recently been named.

Todd Reesing is one of the 33 college quarterbacks named to the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback watch list. The award is given annually to the nation's top quarterback.

Running back Jake Sharp has been selected as one of 45 preseason candidates for the 2009 Doak Walker Award, given each year to the nation's top running back.

Senior safety Darrell Stuckey was selected as one of 31 players on the Jim Thorpe Award watch list. The nation's top defensive back is the recipient of this award.

Receivers Dezmon Briscoe and Kerry Meier were among the 37 players named this week to the watch list for the Biletnikoff Award, given annually to the nation's top receiver. They are the only teammates named to this list.

The 2009 Kansas Jayhawks open their season Sept. 5 @ home against Northern Colorado. Kickoff is at 6:00 PM and Fox College Sports will be televising the game

KU preseason #26 in USA Today Coaches Poll

Mangino's Jayhawks begin the 2009 campaign ranked #26 in the USA Today Coaches Poll which was released earlier today (Aug. 7). The Hawks just missed the top 25 by less than 30 votes. I myself, am not a big proponent of preseason polls and would rather they wait till after week four for the first polls to be released. Having said that, it does allow you to pimp your team and begin to speculate if you were dissed or not as the season begins to shine upon us.

The top five as voted by the coaches came as no suprise: Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, and Alabama. Oklahoma State #11 & Nebraska #22 round out the rest of the Big 12 teams that were deemed tough enough to make the Top 25.

USC is getting a lot of love, but d0 face some huge losses to the NFL. Coach Pete Carroll has proven over the last 7-8 years that the Trojans just continue to reload and replace stars with second teamers. They do have a big hole to fill at QB and they do play three teams ranked in the TOP 23 all on the road in the first half of the season.

One suprise to me is the #14 ranking of the Oregon Ducks. The team with more uniform combinations than sandwich combinations at your local Subway returns only 9 total starters and are under the direction of new coach Chip Kelley.

It all kicks off in 27 days when the Oregon Ducks travels to Boise St. on Thursday night September 3rd for what should be the kickoff of an exciting weekend in college football. Other key games that opening weekend include: Virginia Tech @ Alabama(in Atlanta), Georgia @ Oklahoma State, BYU @ Oklahoma(in Dallas), and Miami @ Florida State.

I'm Back

Hello,
Yes I am BACK!!! I have been gone a while as nobody ever told me that I would no longer have vast amounts of free time with the arrival of our new son. Ok, everyone told me, but I thought I could still manage to do everything as normal as I had in the past. Last year was an exciting year for the Hawks and all their fans. While I didn't cover it here as I would have liked, I did witness the excitement and follow all things KU from that first kick-off of the year to the last heartfelt defeat by Michigan State. I look forward to once again covering the Hawks and will have a season preview of Mangino and his boys posted shortly