Gill and Nutt: brothers in FCS humiliation

When you’re a BCS conference school opening up with some FCS cream puff that you’re supposed to annihilate, it kind of tempers the enthusiasm of the faithful.  Oh, they’re excited that college football is back, but subconsciously they’ve already marked down the game as a “W.”  Therefore, the excitement gets blunted just a little bit.

But in the cases of Ole Miss and Kansas, there was cause for keeping the excitement level high despite the fact that both schools were opening up against supposedly inferior FCS opposition. 

A roller coaster week for Ole Miss seemed to be on the upswing yesterday when Jeremiah Masoli was cleared to play after not being cleared to play.  With the appeal won, Houston Nutt could now cart his new quarterback onto the field to ravage Jacksonville State.  And Rebel fans in attendance were eager to see him do just that.

Up in Kansas, the opener against North Dakota State was game one of the Turner Gill era.  Never mind the fact that half the Jayhawk fans in attendance at Memorial Stadium didn’t know that NDSU even had a football team, they were there to show their new coach some love.

Little did both fan bases know that by the conclusion of their games, the excitement wouldn’t just be blunted, it would be replaced by a feeling that falls somewhere between anger and humiliation.

Against Jax State, Ole Miss was in cruise control with a 31-10 lead to start the second half.  31 to TEN.  From that point on, the game didn’t just take on a new complexion, it got a complete face lift.

Down by 8 with less than a minute left, Jax State’s Marques Ivory found Alan Bonner for a 19-yard touchdown and then converted the 2-point conversion with a pass to LaRay Williams.  That knotted it at 34 and sent the affair to overtime.

In the second OT, Coty Blanchard (who rotated with Ivory throughout the game) passed to Kevyn Cooper for a touchdown and then found Calvin Middleton on the 2-point conversion that provided the difference in the 49-48 stunner.

Things were far less dramatic in Lawrence, but one thing was very similar: a BCS team ended up getting embarrassed.

Kansas practically handed this one over to NDSU on a silver platter.  Jayhawk kicked Jacob Branstetter missed a 42-yard game-tying field goal try in the fourth quarter while tight end Tim Biere fumbled twice, the first one leading directly to the Bisons’ tying field goal.

Instead of an exciting brand of football that Gill had talked about in the months leading up to the game, Jayhawk fans were given the following: NDSU 6, Kansas 3.

In both of these games, the FBS team ended up with a healthy yardage advantage over the FCS opponent (287 to 169 for Kansas, 487 to 348 for Ole Miss).  But in neither case did it make a difference.

It’s funny that Jax State was one of the teams who pulled off this kind of upset, because their coach, Jack Crowe, was once on the receiving end of just such a game.  Back in 1992, he was coaching Arkansas when they opened the season with a 10-3 loss to the Citadel.  He wasn’t coaching the team come game two.

I’m positive neither Turner Gill or Houston Nutt will suffer the same fate after these debacles.  But in terms of positive feeling among their respective fan bases, they’ve managed to wipe every bit of that out a week into the season.