You sure can’t beat a Kansas-Kansas State football game three days before an election to bring the politicians onto the stump, and Memorial Stadium was crawling with hand-shakers on Saturday.

Incumbent congressmen Jim Ryun and Dennis Moore were there. So was challenger Adam Taff. Attorney general hopeful Chris Biggs was sitting outside a sixth-floor suite strumming a guitar. And, of course, gubernatorial candidates Kathleen Sebelius and Tim Shallenburger were pressing the flesh everywhere.

Mark Mangino was, too.

Wait a minute. Mangino isn’t running for office. He’s the Jayhawks’ head football coach. Ah, but Mangino was also playing politician following Saturday’s 64-0 landslide loss to the Wildcats.

In his post-game media session, Mangino stood behind a podium and gamely addressed the issues after the third most lopsided defeat in Kansas University football history. But he also hedged on one important question.

How long, Mangino was asked, will it take to make Kansas competitive in the Big 12 Conference?

OK, I’ll grant that’s not a subjective question, that nobody can predict the future, but I suspected Mangino might reply with something to the effect that he was committed to do it as soon as possible, that he never wanted to suffer such a humiliating defeat again, that the future is bright.

Instead, Mangino stepped back, gazed at the floor momentarily, looked up and uttered a string of platitudes about the difficulties he faced.

“I knew there would be dark days,” he said. “We tackled a big job here. Â This is a big job, and I’m up to the challenge. ÂWhen I left Norman, I knew it would be a big challenge, it would be a big test for me.”

And so on.

Those aren’t the words Kansas University football fans want to hear. They want to hear the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train. They want to believe Mangino will wave a magic wand and turn the program around next year. They don’t want an eighth straight losing season in 2003.

Now you know it isn’t so because what Mangino didn’t say Saturday spoke a mouthful. Kansas is so far away from NCAA Div. I-A respectability it’s impossible to make a timetable. To tell the truth, it will take Mangino at least three years and probably four or five.

A few Kansas football coaches have turned it around in three years. Don Fambrough did. Glen Mason did. But that was before Kansas joined the Big 12 Conference, and comparing the Big 12 to the old Big Eight is like comparing the Kansas River to the Wakarusa River.

Mangino has acted like a politician in another regard this season. He has refused to blame predecessor Terry Allen for leaving a diminished larder. It’s an unwritten rule in coaching that you never blame the last guy who used your office. Mason didn’t do it when he inherited virtually nothing from Bob Valesente in 1988, and Mangino won’t do it, either.

“I’m playing the hand I was dealt,” Mangino said on Saturday, “and I’m not complaining.”

In public, Mangino isn’t complaining, but I’ll bet he was stunned by the lack of talent he found when he accepted the KU job  after some legitimate misgivings  close to a year ago. Every now and then, though, his frustration shows  like early in the second half when he cursed at referee Tom Ahlers and was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.

All Mangino can do is jawbone about working harder, toeing the line and sticking to his system because, well  what else can he do? You can take a lump of coal and polish it and polish it and polish it, but it’s still a lump of coal.

How would you like to go to Nebraska next Saturday with a team that no longer has its only offensive weapon  if injured Bill Whittemore plays in Lincoln I’ll be shocked  and with a defense that couldn’t stop the Brandon Woods All-Stars?

It’s not easy being a politician and a football coach at the same time, but Mangino will have to play that role indefinitely.