After losing 23-0 at home to a struggling Texas program, Kansas has decided to cut ties with head coach Charlie Weis. On Sunday morning, Kansas athletics director Sheahon Zenger has relieved Weis of his head coaching duties, the school confirmed on Sunday.
The termination is effective immediately. Defensive coordinator Clint Bowen will take over the Kansas program as interim head coach. This will allow Kansas to get a jump on the coaching search. It will be guaranteed to be a national search and will probably include a search committee, which appears to be the norm these days.
In 28 games as head coach of Kansas, Weis had gone 6-22. His overall coaching record dropped to 41-49 including his time at Notre Dame. This probably means we have seen the last of Weis as a head coach. If you cannot cut it at Kansas, you are going to have a tough time getting another head coaching job. The future of Weis appears destined to be the life of an offensive coordinator.
Where will Kansas go from here? Kansas being in the Big 12 will only make the coaching job attractive to a few coaches looking to climb up the coaching ladder, but the job is a tough task to take on. Kansas is not going to be attracting any high-profile coach, so it would be more likely the Kansas job ends up going to a coach from a Group of Five program looking to get in the power conference mix or to grab an assistant coach with some flair.
Kansas has to find a coach capable of building a program more than anything else, because the Jayhawks have nowhere to go but up. Grounding the program on defense in the wide-open Big 12 would be advisable, but Kansas will also need to find some help on offense as well.