Sportsfrog.com

In fact, rumors are swirling that The Mangino will not be the coach for Kansas when they play at Texas Saturday night and will be fired tomorrow morning.

The Mangino, however, says that people are just trying to get their 15 minutes of fame at his expense.

The case of The Mangino is perplexing. Is this a case of sour grapes by former players and their parents, disappointed in the direction the team has taken since the Orange Bowl season of 2007? (Lest we forget that KU avoided UT, OU and Tech that year) Is The Mangino really being persecuted because of his weight?

And it also raises an issue of what coaching practices are and aren’t acceptable. He’s been labeled an “abusive bully” and reportedly told a player who’s brother was recently shot that if he didn’t shut up, he could go back to St. Louis and get shot with his homies. (is it homeys? Or is homies the appropriate spelling?)

Honestly, I’ve got no idea what to think. Sure, as a Missouri fan, it’s nice to revel in KU’s problems within the athletic department, but at the same time, I can’t help but wonder why people waited until things were bad to speak out. Were they afraid to at KU? If they did, were they brushed aside because the team was winning?

Ultimately though, I think there definitely is some truth to all of the complaints about The Mangino. Otherwise, KU AD Lew Perkins wouldn’t have publicly announced that there was a formal investigation into the matter before The Mangino’s news conference. By releasing it then, The Mangino couldn’t dodge any of the questions about the matter.

Whatever the case may be, this is getting bigger and bigger (pun!) by the day, and there’s no way that The Mangino will be the head coach of Kansas in 2010, and he may not be when they play Missouri next week. When was the last time a major college coach got hung out to dry by his athletic director and kept his job?

(As I was typing this, it was reported that KU is now investigating Perkins for undermining The Mangino. Apparently Perkins used The Mangino’s phone tree/mass messaging program to notify the players of a mandatory meeting, leading the players to understand that it was a meeting with The Mangino, only to have Perkins lead the meeting with The Mangino nowhere to be found.)