Quite often the past five football seasons, Kansas University would play hard, come close, then lose, and coach Mark Mangino would note, in his low-key manner, “We’ve just got to keep sawin’ wood” to get better.

You get the impression that athletic director Lew Perkins figures this is the season when the Jayhawks finally need to stop just sawing and start milling some solid lumber to begin construction on a House of Success.

I think it was during the recent Big 12 preseason media sessions that Perkins made it clear that with its in-reach schedule and five years of the Mangino tenure on the books, KU needs to be thinking of a seven- or eight-win season.

Al Bohl hired Mangino, and it remains to be seen if that will factor in how Perkins bottom-lines Mark. The two are not warm and fuzzy buddies, so a “nothing personal, strictly business” climate is likely to prevail.

The KU lumberjacks came ever so close to turning out some notable lumber in 2006. Good as they could have been, they muffed four second-half leads and got outscored five times in the fourth quarter. The final 6-6 season easily could have been 8-4, a respectable bowl trip could have been had, and there might have been even more grid fever than we currently sense.

KU never has had a softer four-game opening stretch than this year’s at-home quartet with Central Michigan, Southeastern Louisiana, Toledo and Florida International. Kansas State in the fifth game, a Baylor visit and then a Colorado trip offer incredible potential for a fabulous start, even a 7-0, before an Oct. 27 trek to Texas A&M.

But there’s a gnawing feeling the Central Michigan opener could become the same kind of embarrassment as that double-overtime, 37-31 loss at Toledo last fall. KU got to 3-1 by edging South Florida, but the bloom was off the lily, and four straight losses sent the Jayhawks back to the sawmill.

Central Michigan sounds like a cinch win. Yet suppose KU blows this one as it did the torture at Toledo. Whatever excitement fans will feel up to the Central Michigan kickoff could trigger a negative mindset to wreck the season.

Mangino enters the 2007 grind with a 25-35 KU record and four years on his contract. Eight victories could shift the Jayhawks from the Woodchoppers Ball to the Lumberyard Jive to justify some of that money they’re spending up there. And Lew and Mark would probably seem a lot more affable.

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Just a theory, but did the emergence of those bird cages on football helmets cut down on player fisticuffs during practice? In the days before the face guards, coaches might let guys go at it for a minute or two, with some of them even being dumb enough to rip off their old-style open-face helmets.

Then came the cages, and coaches got more controlling. One time, Kansas assistant Bobby Goad had a cow when two of his ends with facemasks squared off. You can’t believe how quickly he got there, all the while screaming, “Watch your hands … be careful of your damned hands!” Didn’t want a key reception in the game that week ruined by broken fingers from a workout.

Herm Edwards of the Kansas City Chiefs says he’s disgusted when players fight in practice; if they lose it there, they can lose it in a game and cost the team penalties. You can be darn sure that all the tutors, like Bobby Goad, won’t let anyone with vital hands swing away.