Kietz's monologue today will probably be something like:
"Tomorrow really is going to be a defining moment for this ku program under Mark Mangino. It's where we're going to see whether Mangino will be able to establish this program as an actual contender in the Big XII conference and nationally, or whether it's going to be a program that finishes about 7-5 most year, and stays in the North race most of the time. Which, given where ku has been in the past, is great, don't get me wrong! Mangino has absolutely turned that program into a respectable program from nothing.
A couple of years ago, ku was able to take advantage of a favorable schedule and have a very fine year. But they still haven't, under Mangino, been able to beat OU or Texas. Have they even beaten Texas Tech? I don't know. So there you have the top 2, maybe 3 teams in the South. And if you want to be a consistent player in the conference scene and on the national scene, you have to be able to beat those teams, at least occasionally. And ku hasn't been able to get over that hump, yet. And Mangino's in his eighth season at ku.
Now, tomorrow, ku has what may be their best chance yet to beat one of these programs. Four years ago, OU came up to Arrowhead, and ku thought they had a chance there, but it turned out to be just a very boring game, in a pretty sterile environment. A lot of ku folks thought, if they had had that game on campus, maybe things turn out differently.
Tomorrow, you've got the game at home. It's on ABC. OU fans have returned a lot of tickets, so you should have a good home-field advantage. This OU team is physically beat-up, they're coming off a tough loss to their arch rival. Their Heisman quarterback is done. Their first-string running back is probably out. Their O-Line has issues.
I mean, if you're ku, it just doesn't get set up better for you than this. Yeah, ku's coming off a loss, but it's a road loss that a lot of folks thought would be tough for ku, and the players this week have seemed focused on OU...and you know what? Maybe they were focused on OU last week, too.
You've got your arguably best quarterback of all time, your veteran leader, with Reesing. And Meier and Briscoe for him to throw to. And yeah, the defense has had issues, but you're at home, so that should give the defense a boost. This team know they're going to give up points, but they've got the mentality that they're just going to score more on you than you do on them, and they're confident of that. And in fact, they were within a pass-interference call last week of doing that yet again.
It just really seems to me that tomorrow represents ku's best chance to date of taking that step forward and making a statement that they intend to be a program that is a player here to stay on the national stage, and compete with anyone in the Big XII and anyone across the country. And if they can't take advantage of this opportunity tomorrow, I honestly don't know if they'll ever be able to do that under Mangino.
Don't get me wrong, they'll be a nice program, but they won't get to where, I think, Mangino, and a lot of ku fans, would like them to be. I don't know, that's just how I see it. Thoughts, Danny?"
Danny:
"Well, that OU defense is pretty salty, so I think it's maybe a taller order than you present it, but I'd definitely agree that this is one of ku's best opportunities to knock off one of the South big boys. I would disagree a little, in that I'm not sure how much of the ku fan base really expects this team to be a national program. I think most of them are happy to go bowling each year and make a run every now and then when things are favorable. But yeah, tomorrow is definitely an opportunity that the ku team needs to try to take advantage of."
