Kansas coach Mark Mangino entered an elite group of coaches after winning the Bryant Award on Thursday.
KAREN WARREN: CHRONICLE
Surprising run by 12-1 Jayhawks earns Bryant Award
By BRANDON C. WILLIAMS, Houston Chronicle
Having already been named the Associated Press Big 12 Co-Coach of the Year and the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year, the University of Kansas coach won the 22nd annual Paul “Bear” Bryant Award Thursday night at the Hyatt Regency Downtown.
“This is really quite an honor,” said Mangino, who led the Jayhawks to a 12-1 record, including a win in the Orange Bowl, during the 2007 season. “To receive an award in the name of Bear Bryant is special to me. I’m really thankful that among these great coaches who were up for this award, I’m the one who received it.”
The award, sponsored by the American Heart Association, went to a Big 12 coach for the second time in three years. Texas’ Mack Brown received the honor in 2005.
A well-coached team
Kansas was one of the nation’s surprise teams, winning its first 11 games before losing to Missouri and taking the school’s first trip to the Orange Bowl since 1969. The Jayhawks finished seventh in the final AP poll, largely behind a well-disciplined philosophy that saw them have the fewest penalties and best turnover margin in the country.
Mangino, who coached under Jim Tressel at Youngstown State, Bill Snyder at Kansas State and Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, joins his mentors as Bryant Award winners. Tressel won the honor at Ohio State in 2002, Snyder in 1998 and Stoops in 2000 after a season in which the Sooners won the national championship with Mangino serving as offensive coordinator.
“The most important part of this award is the coaches and players who helped make this happen,” said Mangino. “We have some very talented young men, and we have some who just go out and play hard. Any coach will tell you that the better the players, the better the coach.”
Mangino talked about how he grew up reading all he could about Bryant, the former Alabama and Texas A&M coach who won 323 games and six national championships. It was a conversation with former Crimson Tide quarterback Joe Namath a day before the Orange Bowl that helped Mangino truly understand Bryant.
“Not only did he talk about how great a coach Bryant was, but also what he meant to him as a man,” Mangino said. “It was truly an unbelievable conversation.”
Glittering competition
Mangino won the award over Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer (who could not make it to Houston because of bad weather in Virginia), Mississippi State’s Sylvester Croom, former Hawaii and current SMU coach June Jones, national championship-winning coach Les Miles of LSU, Missouri’s Gary Pinkel and Illinois’ Ron Zook.
Jones welcomes the challenge of rebuilding the Mustangs. SMU is already on pace to have one of its best recruiting classes in a decade.
“I’ve had a lot of 18- to 20-hour days, but I’m excited about it,” said Jones, who coached with the Houston Oilers from 1987-93.
Because of NCAA rules, Jones could not comment on the status of Katy quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, who currently is a part of Hawaii’s recruiting class but has recently pondered a change to join Jones at SMU.
The night also featured former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne receiving the Bear Bryant Lifetime Achievement award. Osborne, who won 255 games and three national titles with the Cornhuskers from 1973-97, was joined on the stage by more than a dozen of his former players, including current Texans Kris Brown and Ahman Green and former Oiler Jamie Williams.
“To have this number of players who came out is a great honor for me,” said Osborne. “To coach against Bear Bryant was a meaningful experience. … He was the gold standard of coaching.”
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