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Opinion: Kansas football makes questionable hire in Mike DeBord as OC

By Dillon Davis

ANN ARBOR, MI - AUGUST 30: Head coach Mike DeBord of the Central Michigan Chippewas, former offensive coordinator for the University of Michigan Wolverines, watches the 2003 season opener against the Wolverines at Michigan Stadium on August 30, 2003 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan defeated the Central Michigan 45-7. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Getty Images)
ANN ARBOR, MI - AUGUST 30: Head coach Mike DeBord of the Central Michigan Chippewas, former offensive coordinator for the University of Michigan Wolverines, watches the 2003 season opener against the Wolverines at Michigan Stadium on August 30, 2003 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan defeated the Central Michigan 45-7. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Getty Images) /
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Head coach Les Miles’ decision to hire old friend Mike DeBord as the new Kansas football offensive coordinator brings more questions than answers.

When Les Miles and Kansas football announced on Tuesday that they hired Mike DeBord as the replacement offensive coordinator for Brent Dearmon, my first response was: who? Then after reading more about him, I asked myself: why?

DeBord – who turns 65 on Sunday – joins the Kansas football staff after spending this past year as an offensive analyst at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh. DeBord was reportedly set to retire following the 2020 season.

Nothing personal against DeBord, but I am not sure I trust the motivation of a 65-year-old man who was on the verge of retiring to come in with the energy and work ethic that is needed to turn around what was one of the worst offenses in college football last season. Many had similar concerns when Miles was hired as head coach.

One of Dearmon’s strengths was recruiting. He was energetic, he had a good presence on social media, and could connect with players. He opened multiple avenues for us in Arkansas and other parts of the South.

Is DeBord going to be able to match that? In this day and age, you have to reach players where they are at and a major part of that is online. Based on a quick glance at DeBord’s Twitter feed I would say that is not to be expected.

20 years ago, this hire would have been excellent. He helped Michigan win a national championship in 1997 as their offensive coordinator and that same year was named The Sporting News’ “National Assistant Coach of the Year”.

But this is 2021. And this will be his fifth different job in the past five years. Since DeBord left Michigan in 1999 to take the head coaching job at Central Michigan, he has not coached for a team in any capacity for more than three years.

DeBord is also going to be the Jayhawks’ quarterbacks coach – a position group that needs dire improvement if this team has any hope of success. DeBord has only directly coached quarterbacks twice for two seasons total in his coaching career.

Kansas Athletic Director Jeff Long, Miles, and DeBord all were at Michigan in the early ‘90s and this just reeks of getting the old band back together and collecting one final paycheck.

Following the hire, the Kansas Football social media accounts were doing a lot of validating yesterday, with tweets like the one below to try and convince fans this is a good hire – which probably means that it isn’t. Andy Reid has never worked on the same staff as DeBord.

https://twitter.com/KU_Football/status/1356771644946198538?s=20

Maybe this was truly the best Kansas could do. There were some rumblings out there that several of the prospects Miles reached out to said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” And I understand why they would want someone with experience but the circumstances that surround this hire just make it too questionable to ignore.

Hopefully I am wrong, and I will gladly eat my words if it means DeBord can fix this broken offense.

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