Kansas University football coach Terry Allen promised change to his reeling program and he plans to deliver on Saturday, and not a day before.
"We are going to make some changes at this particular time," Allen said Monday on the Big 12 coaches' teleconference. "We have an idea what those changes are. Unfortunately, we won't unfold them for the media until Saturday. We're just protecting the situation."
C'mon, coach. Will Dylen Smith start at quarterback in place of Zac Wegner? Will you change schemes? Starters?
"There could be some personnel changes, there could be some scheme changes," Allen said. "(QB change) is a possibility. Again, we're going to hold that card. " We're not going to make drastic changes and change everything we do. But there are some subtle changes we can make."
Allen plans to mix things up in the wake of Saturday's 41-13 home loss to San Diego State.
KU held a short practice and tape session on Sunday and took Monday off.
"The encouraging thing from that standpoint," Allen said, "was that when you get to this point, you worry about losing the players. We didn't lose any players. They were all mentally there, alert and attentive. " We didn't lose 'em. We do have something to build from."
As further proof, Allen offers the second half of the SDSU loss. After trailing 31-0 at the half, Kansas won the second half, 13-10.
"Obviously, when you reach the bottom, you have to dig yourselves out," Allen said. "We did that in the second half. But we have a longer ways to go with it. We did reach that point. Now we have to strive for better times.
"We're all concerned about the direction of the program. What you look at is how to get out of it, how to survive that. We want to patch this thing together. We're going to do the best we can to help those guys be successful. They've been through some tough, humiliating times. We'll do the best to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Kansas (1-3 overall) will play host to SMU (0-3) on Saturday. Kickoff for KU's homecoming is 1 p.m. at Memorial Stadium.
"SMU is very similar to us," Allen said. "Both teams are struggling to this point. Obviously, that makes the situation very interesting. That goes back to the mental approach to things. I'm sure they're doing some soul-searching themselves."
-- Andrew Hartsock's phone number is 832-7216. His e-mail address is ahartsock@ljworld.com.
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