Kansas head coach Turner Gill closes his eyes as he paces past his players during the fourth quarter against Southern Miss, Friday, Sept. 17, 2010 at M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Jayhawks fell to the Golden Eagles 31-16.

Waco, Texas ? Turner Gill might have achieved the impossible when he posted a winning record at Buffalo, but the job he’s in now might be harder than that.

For all the perceived and real progress the Kansas University football program made in the past few years under “tyrant” Mark Mangino, it appears to be on the precipice of being erased in Gill’s first season as head coach.

The Fort Worth native and graduate of Arlington Heights is off to about as bad a start as a coach, or an athletic department, could imagine in his first season in Lawrence.

Kansas’ 55-7 loss to Baylor on Saturday re-exposed the entire program for what it is — not good.

The Jayhawks committed four turnovers, missed countless tackles, were penalized four times in the first quarter and were thoroughly out-classed by a team long considered to be near the bottom of the Big 12. The defense gave up 678 yards, the most by a Kansas team since 1988.

“Obviously, not a very good job by us as a coaching staff,” Gill said. “Missed tackles. Missed execution of where they needed to be, what they needed to do.”

Kansas’ 2-3 record is just more evidence for those who wondered how a man who had a 20-30 career record with one winning season landed a Big 12 head coaching job.

KU lost a lot from last season’s 5-7 team, and it’s young, but this is not a talentless roster. But whether it was KU’s season-opening loss to North Dakota State (an FCS school) or Saturday’s loss, the play has been OK to abysmal. Yes, KU did beat then-No. 15 Georgia Tech in Week 2, but as the season moves on, the Yellow Jackets look overrated.

The best thing going for Gill is that he has a five-year contract working for a state school that can’t write him a go-away check. It already issued one of those, and that was to Mangino. Don’t expect another anytime soon.

So Gill has time. What he does with it will reflect his ability to coach and recruit. But it might not totally be an accurate reflection.

In coaching terms, Kansas is a bad job. Yes, it’s pumped millions into the football program after Mangino badgered people to care about football at a basketball school. Yes, there were results, including the stunning 12-1 season in 2007 and an Orange Bowl victory against Virginia Tech that embodied “fluke.”

But what Gill envisions doing might not be possible at KU. A protege of former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne, Gill is not going to land five-star Cornhuskers recruits. He’s going to have to roll the dice on some kids that more established programs shy away from, be it for academic or personal reasons.

He’s going to have to convince KU to take a few “risk” players.

He’s going to have to exploit his Texas ties get recruits to come to Lawrence.

He’s going to have to get lucky the way Mangino did with former Austin Lake Travis quarterback Todd Reesing, who turned into the best passer in school history. (Mangino had no idea what he had when he offered Reesing a scholarship).

One Big 12 coach said Gill is already getting in the homes of highly ranked players and that as a recruiter he’s perceived as a “genuine threat.”

After that is done, Gill is going to have to demonstrate the ability he knows how to coach a Big 12 program from the sidelines.

At 2-3, there are doubts, and it looks as if those doubts are only going to expand as this season continues.

But Turner Gill has time to turn the Kansas football program into something more than it normally is, which usually isn’t very good.