If Charlie Weis wanted to know just how big the rebuilding project was ahead of him, the preseason Big 12 awards will tell him how other people think of the talent currently on the roster. Perhaps he can use that as a motivational tool of some kind, but it will take more than that to turn around the Jayhawks football program left devastated after two years under Turner Gill.
The preseason teams were announced on Wednesday and the only school in the Big 12 without a single player mentioned was Kansas. No players on offense, defense or special teams were mentioned, which means the school needs a lot of work on both sides of the ball and that the perception of the school is not good. Of course, a few wins will change all of that but it might be hard in perhaps the most difficult football conference in the country.
Matt Tait of KU Sports writes, "Today's news might have come as a disappointment for some KU fans, but it should not have come as a surprise. Based on what we know about KU's roster and how certain players stack up against the league's top players at each position, it seems more than fair to leave the Jayhawks off of this list and make them earn their way onto the postseason squad. Whether any will or not remains to be seen."
Weis hopes that one year will help the team turn things around in a positive direction and the arrival of new faces like Dayne Crist will help. It's just obvious there's a long, long way to go.