Mark Mangino's Kansas Jayhawks Have Everything To Lose

Let me put this out there right away. I have no interest in gossip, rumors, or spreading stories about athletes and their personal lives.

If you're looking for the latest inside story on the two incidents involving the Kansas Jayhawk football and basketball players, you should look for a different story on a different site, or in People magazine or something.

What I do care about is KU football, which is why I love bleacher report, "The web's best destination for sports community, news, opinion, photos and more."

I don't want to talk about junk; I want to talk about how these brawls affect my football team.

First of all, the KU football and basketball teams are the two most worldly-popular groups of people from this campus. 

I don't want to hear about the cause of the fight or whose fault it was. By merely allowing themselves to be involved in such an incident, the responsible football players have tarnished the entire name of our great, storied program.

Nobody wants to be the bad guy, but when both sides involved are KU athletic squads, I'm pretty sure ESPN, FSN, CBS, SI and every other sports-media outlet will know where to point their fingers.

Secondly, there will be punishment.

The young men responsible have a debt to pay and a lesson to learn. 

I don't know who was involved, but the number of available names and witnesses will give Bill Self and Mark Mangino plenty to work with. In fact, the sheer popularity of such a ridiculous occurrence leaves these coaches' great reputations at stake, ensuring that justice will be served.

It may be handled internally and quietly, but I am willing to bet my life on that this situation will be handled appropriately, regardless of the repercussions on the success of either team. A university won't bring great things to an athletics department if the athletes give only negatives in return.

Remember, Mangino is no stranger to suspension or expulsion.

Thirdly, don't players know that they're representing an entire program? Don't they consider that this one little fight could completely turn the tides of potentially the greatest season in the history of KU football?

Isn't that kind of success and gratification what they've been striving to achieve since they arrived on campus? Some players work towards that kind of gratification their entire lives. How does their focus escape them so quickly?

One bad injury or big suspension could be the difference between a Big 12 trip to Texas and having the month of December off.

If someone's religious freedom, family or right to living was not at stake, this type of conflict is unjustifiable.

I'm not sure what else there is to say here other than that I am extremely disappointed in Mark Mangino's Jayhawks, and it will be hard for me to forgive them anytime soon.

The most good I can hope for to come out of this is that the troubled people at the source of this nonsense apologize to everyone they've hurt, serve their suspension admirably and work harder than ever to repair damages they may have caused on the field, or take their disruptive attitudes far away from an undeserving football program and coach.