If I plunked a Sacagawea dollar into my pocket every time someone asked me how I thought the Kansas University football team would do this fall, I’d be listing to starboard.

New coach. New staff. New interest. New enthusiasm.

Will it all translate into a satisfying season? Will the Jayhawks surprise the experts? Is it possible for Kansas to manufacture a 6-6 campaign and earn a bowl bid?

Maybe, and yet the cold, hard fact remains that first-year coaches who have replaced Kansas coaches who were fired rarely debut with memorable seasons. Only one coach in the last 50 years, for instance, has fashioned a winning campaign. That was Bud Moore, who vaulted to a 7-5 record in 1975 Â a debut season that probably needs an asterisk because Don Fambrough wasn’t officially fired after KU faded badly in 1974.

Fambrough had taken the Jayhawks to the Liberty Bowl in 1973 and expectations, already high, skyrocketed when the Jayhawks won four of their first five in ’74. Then the wheels fell off. KU dropped its last six. In the wake of that six-week skid, KU athletic director Clyde Walker refused to extend Fambrough’s contract beyond its 1975 conclusion. Fambrough knew he couldn’t recruit with just a one-year pact, so he resigned. That’s known in the vernacular as resigning under pressure.

So Walker hired Moore, who had been an aide under Bear Bryant at Alabama, and Moore won with Fambrough’s players. Still, it should be noted Moore deserves credit for switching a speedy safety named Nolan Cromwell to quarterback and installing a Wishbone offense.

In general, though, coaches are fired because they didn’t accumulate enough players with size, speed and athleticism to compile enough victories, and their successors are saddled with putting Humpty-Dumpty together again, almost always a time-consuming task.

Nevertheless, Pepper Rodgers went 5-5 in his first season after replacing Jack Mitchell in 1967, and Mitchell was a respectable 4-5-1 after taking over for the fired Chuck Mather in 1958. Too, Mike Gottfried fashioned a decent 4-6-1 mark in 1983 after Fambrough’s second term as KU coach was terminated.

On the other end of the spectrum, few Kansas coaches ever found a barer cupboard than Glen Mason did in 1988 when he came to Mount Oread from Kent State to replace the axed Bob Valesente. Mason settled for a 1-10 record in ’88 and probably deserved a medal for not going 0-11 with the talent he inherited.

Chuck Mather wasn’t so lucky in 1954 after KU pulled the ripcord on J.V. Sikes. Mather went 0-10, the only winless Kansas football season in history.

So what does all of this mean for 2002? On balance, the law of averages says Mark Mangino’s first season will not produce a .500 or better record. Remember, too, that not even Bill Snyder was a winner in his first season at Kansas State. It doesn’t seem possible now, but the Wildcats were 1-10 in 1989.

I’d be surprised  make that shocked  if Kansas stumbles to a 1-10 record this fall. KU has too much talent to slide that far. Snyder took over an 0-11 team in his first year. Mangino has inherited a 3-8 team that faced, according to the NCAA, the third toughest schedule in the nation.

Not that KU’s schedule is easy this season  no Big 12 slate is  but replacing UCLA with UNLV, Texas with Texas A&M, Oklahoma with Oklahoma State and Texas Tech with Baylor is like replacing Guccis with Rockports. The 2002 schedule at least affords the Jayhawks some opportunities.

On the flip side, while the opponents may not be quite as strong, the timing could be a lot better. Four of KU’s first six games are on the road, and four of the last six are at home. Ideally, that alignment would be reversed because KU has a history of road woes. In the last five seasons, the Jayhawks have won only three games away from Memorial Stadium and two were in overtime.

Another factor to consider is depth. Kansas is thin at some positions and the 2002 schedule contains an extra regular-season game. It’s a cliche, but the Jayhawks will have to stay injury-free.

Optimistically, Kansas will go into its last game against Oklahoma State with a 5-6 record and an opportunity to earn a bowl bid. Realistically, though, the finale will be meaningless.

Will this be a year for the optimists or one for the realists? That’s why they don’t mail in the scores.