Over the last two weeks, I had thought about writing a story discussing the fact that there didn't seem to be any Big 12 coaches who might lose their job following this season, a rare occurence in the conference, and in college football in general. Then word comes out today that Mark Mangino, the head coach at Kansas, is under investigation for a possible physical altercation with a player, and our period of coaching stability is gone, just like that.

Mangino is known to be a coach who subscribes to the school of "hard coaching", that is, he is very verbally abusive of his players. If you have a team of talented, experienced veterans, this isn't a problem, because they can take the abuse and channel it to their effort on the field. Experienced players have the confidence to not let the abuse get to them, and not let it effect their play. The issue with Kansas, however, is that they started the season 5-0 and are in a current five-game losing streak. An abusive or negative coach can be tolerated if you are winning and their way seems to be successful, but if you are losing it really isn't worth it to take such constant abuse. This five-game losing streak may have been the breaking point for too many players, which is why they've having this 'investigation' now.

If Kansas gets rid of Mangino, I am wondering who they would be able to attract to replace him. The simple fact of the matter is that Kansas is a DI-A job, so there are thousands of coaches who would be willing to take the head coaching job there. However, I am wondering if any up-and-coming future star in the coaching profession would be willing to take a job at a school where they know no matter what their best efforts, football will always be second to the state's obsession with basketball. If you figure that Will "BMF" Muschamp is the type of young, high-profile coordinator Kansas would like to go after as their next head coach (and yes, I know Muschamp isn't leaving Austin because there is plan of progression in place for him to follow Mack Brown, he is the head-coach-in-waiting, so don't freak out texas fans), I don't see how Kansas would attract that kind of high-profile talent to Lawrence. Why go to Kansas when there are other jobs opening this year?

Dark horse candidate for the Kansas job should Mangino be fired: Ken Niumatalolo, head coach, Navy.

This is a real dark horse, because he is only in his second season on the job at Navy, but I'd love to see the return of full-fledged option football to the Big 12, and Niumatalolo is doing a terrific job with Navy's flexbone attack. Beating Notre Dame on the road this year certainly helps raise his profile, but this makes it two seasons in a row Navy has been bowling in Niumatalolo's two years there. I'm just not sure how many athletic directors will consider him seriously since this is his only experience as a head coach, and he is only two years into his tenue with the Navy program. It is someone to consider, though.