By the time the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns arrived in Kansas for its Friday night game, the buzz in Lawrence was focused on a different Louisiana resident with the same destination with former LSU head coach Les Miles reportedly on the verge of being named the next head coach for Jayhawks football.

The coincidence of the Louisiana-Kansas matchup added up to a freaky Friday.  Or was it a coincidence?  Could you imagine this conversation that may or may not have taken place between Kansas Jayhawks AD Jeff Long and the coach who brought the state of Louisiana its last football national championship?

Long: “Coach, now that we’re close to having you wear crimson and blue, wouldn’t it be great if you greet the halftime crowd with a ‘Rock Chalk Jayhawk’ sign-off?  In the middle of a game against a team from Louisiana?”

Miles: “That’d be great. What’s the number for football’s season-ticket hotline?”

A deal with Miles would put a national title caliber coach in the driver’s seat of a bleeding Kansas football program which fired head coach David Beaty mid-season.  The Jayhawks were 3-7 going into their prime time game at Oklahoma.  Miles knows about those games in Norman from his days as the head coach at Oklahoma State.  Truth be told, Sooner fans were burned by Miles coached OSU Cowboy teams and KU fans would love for that to happen again.

At a school where basketball is front and center, the tie between freshman Quentin Grimes and his father, Marshall who played two years with the Rajun’ Cajuns, would have grabbed more attention.

But all the attention toward basketball is one of the reasons Long made the move to fire Beaty.  When attendance at Memorial Stadium against Iowa State falls short of a capacity crowd at Allen Fieldhouse, that’s a problem.  Especially when the traveling Cyclone fans outnumbered the Jayhawks football fans.

Even Jayhawks coach Bill Self concedes that a successful football program plays an important role in college athletics.

”I’m proud of our sport, what we’ve accomplished and the energy we can bring to a campus, but there’s still nothing like a fall Saturday to bring energy and excitement to your school,” said Self after the Friday night win over the Rajun’ Cajuns.