Kansas Jayhawks head coach Turner Gill could breathe a sigh of relief on Saturday afternoon. His football team went out and had one of the best fourth quarters I've ever seen en route to an incredible comeback victory.
I've been as hard on Gill as anyone for KU's 2-6 start but he did something right on Saturday. He says the halftime speech included the word "relentless" which was their word of the week. Suffice to say the halftime speech was different from the postgame speech.
"We just said we loved each other," Turner Gill said of the players' reaction to the game. "We just all hugged each other. We're going to continue to move on a little bit and yell and scream and continue to celebrate. This is a great win for our program, and a great win for our players. I'm just so proud of them - they came to play. This is a great group of guys to be around and we're going to continue on in this direction next week."
The Jayhawks were down 45-17 in the fourth quarter and at that point the trash talking was picking up, KU WR Jonathan Wilson says.
"I was just down. The Colorado guys were talking trash to us saying `look at the scoreboard' and I really had no response. All of a sudden we started making plays and playing our game and they shut up real quick."
I can't imagine being the guy who was talking trash to Wilson. I wonder what he said 10 minutes later as KU was scoring the go-ahead touchdown?
The game itself means very little but it does mean a lot for Turner Gill and the rest of the program. Everyone was going through a difficult time at Kansas right now so a big win like this -- much like the one over Georgia Tech following the North Dakota State loss -- was very much needed.
Kudos to Turner Gill on what truly is a great win for KU.