Kansas Coach Turner Gill Needs To Hire Tony Samuel to Run Defense

A lot of Kansas fans are reportedly upset with the Turner Gill hire, thinking that they should have hired a more proven, big name coach. Well I have news for you: a more proven, big name coach isn't coming.

Kansas sent feelers out to Houston Nutt, Jim Harbaugh, even a marginal guy like Tim Brewster and was rejected by them all. Gill was the fallback candidate, and you Kansas fans should be happy that Gill was willing to be a fallback candidate for a program that has only had 18 winning seasons (and those were usually at 6-5 or 7-5!) out of 65 years of playing college football.

And Gill critics, please don't overrate some of the guys that you wanted, especially Jim Harbaugh. It really isn't that hard to win at Stanford. Case in point: Tyrone Willingham had four winning seasons there, and went 5-6 twice . Because of their location and academic reputation, Stanford always has good athletes.

Their problem has been hiring guys like Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris to coach those athletes. Whenever Stanford has a competent coach, they win. Check Stanford's recent recruiting rankings: Harbaugh went 4-8, 5-7, and 8-4 with more talent than Kansas used to go 5-7, 8-5, and 12-1.

So, Kansas fans should be happy to get a coach who successfully pulled off the toughest rebuilding job in the country at Buffalo (who would have had their second winning season in a row had their star RB not missed the season due to injury, and remember Buffalo lost their starting QB to graduation) and has over 10 years of experience as an assistant in the Big 8/Big 12.

It really is the best of both worlds, as Gill's experience as an assistant—including the assistant head coach title—at Big 12 powerhouse Nebraska, and recruiting the types of players that he will need to succeed at Kansas (diamonds in the rough that programs like Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska will overlook).

There is, however, one issue: the defense. Gill is a certified offense guy, and offense wins games. But defense wins championships. And defense is particularly important in the flag football Big 12 North. As a matter of fact, Nebraska was able to get the Big 12 North title this year simply by having a good defense.

Unless Gill fields a good defense at Kansas, he won't be able to build on what Mangino started, and won't be able to separate Kansas from the other middling programs in "the spread conference." So, the defensive coordinator hire will be key.

And who should Gill hire? None other than a guy very much responsible for a key ingredient to the success in those 1990s Nebraska title games: the dominant defensive lines.

That guy was none other than Tony Samuel , at the time Nebraska's defensive line coach. Samuel left Nebraska to be the head coach at New Mexico State, a rather unwise move, but it showed that Samuel did have ambition and was willing to take a risk.

After that worked out as can be predicted, Samuel landed the head coaching job at an FCS school, Southeast Missouri. Certainly, being a coordinator in the Big 12 is a step up in pay and prestige from being a head coach at a low profiel FCS school.

Plus, Samuel and Gill worked together all those years on Tom Osborne's staff. Finally, coaching at New Mexico State and Southeast Missouri gives Samuel the background in recruiting and coaching the type of defensive talent that Kansas will attract.

Nebraska ran an aggressive, blitz heavy 4-6 defense when Samuel was an assistant, often with big DTs and undersized players at DE and LB, with DBs that were adequate. There is no reason why he can't build a very competitive version of that defense at Kansas.

You may ask "why another Nebraska guy? We are Kansas, not Nebraska. Why should we hire a bunch of Nebraska assistants instead of building our own tradition?" Well, simple: look at Nebraska's tradition in basketball, and look at Kansas. Kansas is actually No. 2 in football in your own state to the program in Manhattan! You should WANT people from a school that actually knows how to build and run a program.

Second, both Gill and Samuel could still be at Nebraska if they wanted to be. They left because they wanted to build their own traditions elsewhere. So Gill and Samuel would be Kansas guys building a Jayhawk football tradition.

So Kansas fans, root for Gill to bring Samuel on as your defensive coordinator. If that happens, it really would go a long way towards making Gill a success at Kansas!