KU captain Ben Heeney: Jayhawks enjoying fresh start under interim coach Clint Bowen

Clint Bowen began to cry when he addressed his team for the first time, but that’s just one thing you should know about Kansas’ interim football coach.

In his first five days on the job, Bowen ran sprints with his players, invited some former Jayhawks to practice, opened up a weekly workout to the media, subtly jabbed a rival Big 12 coach (more on that in a moment), and perhaps unintentionally changed the music soundtrack during practice.

You see, Charlie Weis was a Jersey guy, always loading up the practice play-lists with cuts of Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi. Now Bowen is letting his players do the picking.

“We got our own music now,” defensive lineman Keon Stowers said. “We don’t have to listen to Bon Jovi.”

It has been a few days since Kansas fired Weis on Sunday morning and appointed Bowen — a 42-year-old defensive coordinator and former KU defensive back — to serve as interim coach. But already a few themes have emerged: In short, Bowen is trying to instill a sense of pride in Kansas football, a program that has lost 48 of 59 games and is looking for its third full-time coach since Mark Mangino departed following the 2009 season.

He also appears to be promoting a healthier working environment, an element that senior receiver Tony Pierson describes like this: “More free.”

“People (are) not, like, so uptight,” Pierson continued, contrasting the styles of his former coach and his new one. “Based on the personality of the coaches — coach Bowen and coach Weis — we feel like coach Bowen is a players’ coach. We just feel like coach Weis was always about business all the time.”

On Saturday, the Jayhawks, 2-2, will play for their new coach for the first time, traveling to West Virginia, 2-2, for a 3 p.m. matchup at Milan Puskar Stadium.

In some ways, KU football players have been conditioned to embrace change. Many players on the roster were recruited to Lawrence by former head coach Turner Gill; some Jayhawks are on their second or third position coach. In the last two weeks, before Weis was fired, players spoke up about blocking out distractions and playing for each other — not their head coach. But according to Ben Heeney, a senior linebacker and two-time captain, the players have mostly taken to Bowen’s style.

The fresh start, Heeney says, has been energizing.

Last Sunday morning, some players awoke to a text message, informing them of Weis’ dismissal. A few hours later, they were sitting in a meeting, watching Bowen become emotional as he spoke about his lifelong dream of coaching Kansas.

“He might have teared up a little bit,” Heeney said. “It’s his dream since he was a little kid and stuff. So for a guy to fulfill his dream, it’s pretty special.”

Later that day, Bowen was joining his players on the practice field as they finished an afternoon workout by running a series of 80-yard runs.

“He’s leading the charge,” Stowers said, “running along with us.”

Intended or now, Bowen’s practice style stands in distinct contrast to Weis, who was limited in mobility after battling health problems and undergoing a hip replacement in recent years. Bowen, meanwhile, was a defensive back for former KU coach Glen Mason in the early 1990s, and he has maintained his fitness into his early 40s.

“It’s just cool to have a guy like that out there with us,” Heeney said, “because he’s been through it. He’s been out here on this field.”

On Wednesday afternoon, before another Kansas practice, Heeney spoke of the most prominent changes. Bowen has compartmentalized practice sessions to focus on specific skills — the Jayhawks’ defense, for instance, will work on defending the run for one session, then pressures and blitzes for another. At the end, it all fits together.

“It’s given us kind of a chance to focus on one thing,” Heeney said.

Will the new voice in the huddle yield different results for a team that has lost 25 straight on the road? Perhaps not. But that didn’t keep Bowen from delivering a understated message to West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen.

Last week, the Mountaineers had a bye, and Holgorsen spoke of last year’s 31-19 loss to Kansas in Lawrence — the Jayhawks’ first conference victory since 2010.

“It was a miserable performance,” Holgorsen told reporters, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I’ve been watching it for two straight days and it makes me want to puke.”

A week later, Bowen was meeting reporters in Lawrence, praising Holgorsen’s coaching ability and his job thus far at West Virginia. Then he added:

“I hope that this week his stomach has settled down a little bit,” he said. “(I hope) he’s not so sick from last week.”

This story was originally published October 2, 2014 at 2:01 PM with the headline "KU captain Ben Heeney: Jayhawks enjoying fresh start under interim coach Clint Bowen."