Vanderbilt University’s decision to merge its varsity sports programs with intramural sports — and eliminate the position of athletic director — startled quite a few college ADs a week ago today.

“It is a little surprising,” first-year KU athletic director Lew Perkins said Monday. “You are talking about the perception of a great university and its athletic program now being structured in a different way.

“It’s unconventional. A different way might be better. Time will tell.”

Vanderbilt chancellor Gordon Gee last week pink-slipped seventh-year AD Todd Turner, putting a vice chancellor in charge of the school’s new Office of Student Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness.

Turner is considering an offer to remain as a special assistant to the chancellor for athletic-academic reform.

“I know Todd well. He is a great administrator and person. He has a lot to offer,” Perkins said. “I don’t have all the facts and figures, so it’s hard to comment, but these are the concerns you have. The financial issues we are talking about today are real.

“This is a decision their institution made, and that’s why it’s important we get on the stick. People think I’m nuts (talking about the urgent need to raise money) … but money is such a concern in athletics today.”

Perkins said the Vandy situation showed if schools like KU cannot increase budgets to improve facilities and improve the lot of student-athletes, “there are all kinds of alternatives.”

For the time being, Vandy’s coaches must convince recruits the school still has a major commitment to varsity sports. Gee has said the restructuring of the program was not designed to de-emphasize winning.

“I do not think this will hurt people in their department. It is so radical and different I would think it would hurt them in the league and recruiting. Perceptions are so important. It can’t help them in all sports,” Perkins said.

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Nice grid win: Perkins watched KU’s football team outlast Wyoming, 42-35, Saturday in Laramie, Wyo., and improve to 2-1.

“It’s great. I’m thrilled about how the hard work is beginning to pay off. I’m happy for the kids and the coaches. They are just playing very well,” Perkins said of a team that could improve to 3-1 following Saturday’s home battle against Jacksonville State.

Perkins isn’t distressed the Jayhawks were outscored 21-7 in the final half in high-altitude Laramie.

“It’s just my opinion the oxygen might have caught up with us,” Perkins said.

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Giddens returns: KU freshman basketball player J.R. Giddens, who had surgery to repair a stress fracture in his left foot in July, is now taking part in pick-up games and KU’s two-hour weekly individual workouts. For the last week or so, Giddens, a 6-foot-5 guard from Oklahoma City, had been working out on the side during “individual drills,” which at KU include four players at a time for 45 minutes three times a week.

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Recruiting update: Malik Hairston, a 6-5 high school senior shooting guard from Detroit who has made official campus visits to UCLA and Ohio State, will visit Kansas this weekend. Hairston also has been offered a scholarship by Michigan State .

Josh McRoberts, a 6-9 high school junior forward from Carmel, Ind., visited Duke last weekend. Duke recruiting Internet sites have reported the player, who had KU and other schools on his list, has committed to Duke.

Alexander “Sasha” Kaun, a 6-11 senior from Melbourne, Fla., and originally from Russia, visited Michigan State last weekend. Kaun, who visited KU two weeks ago, will visit Duke Sept. 26.

A.J. Price, 6-1 from Amityville, N.Y., who has make trips to KU and Syracuse in successive weeks, heads to UConn this weekend. He also has St. John’s and Florida State on his list.