Had a few hours to spend in my truck last night, so was catching up on some 810 podcasts. This segment was from Petro's show a week ago, but Grunny really opens up for the first time since he quit Charlie's staff. Some pretty interesting and telling stuff:
Recruiting:
Recruiting under Charlie's watch was hard. At K-State and Mizzou, they can afford to recruit some raw high school players with upside, and know that they can develop them and by year 3 they may be an important part of the system. At KU, Charlie did not want us chasing those guys. We needed to focus exclusively on guys who could step in and play right now.
Also,
K-State and Mizzou were really good at cultivating relationships with high talent local kids and offering early. That way, when Oregon or one of the big boys steps in at the last minute and offers a scholarship, you had that 2 year relationship and can hold on to him. Charlie did not buy in to that, and did not trust his assistants to make early offers. He talked about the amzing amount of trust that Gary Pinkle has in his assistants to make early offers. He did go on to say that Charlie may be coming around in that area, but there was certainly some frustration in Grunny's voice on that issue.
Facilities:
The Anderson football complex was a huge help, as they use to have to bus to practice every day. However, the indoor facility across campus is still a huge issue. As the weather turns cold and the indoor facility is needed, that also happens to be the time of year when 16,300 fans are packing Allen a couple nights a week. The indoor practice facility site right next door to Allen. Which means that the football team could spend a good portion of their evening in sweaty pads sitting in a bus after practice stuck in basketball traffic trying to get back to the football locker rooms.
I then listened Grunny's appearance the following week, and he joked about no more KU talk. He apparently ruffled a lot of feathers with the above statements the previous week.
