Kansas University’s football camps, which wrap up this week, ultimately are run by the KU coaching staff. But as far as instructors go, the Jayhawk coaches merely make up a slice of actual whistle-blowers barking compliments and tips to hungry learners.

As a way to bring more exposure to the attendees, this month’s various KU football camps are assisted, like every year, by small-college coaches across the region. Kansas junior colleges like Butler County, Hutchinson and Independence, and four-year schools like Washburn and Doane College in Crete, Neb., have had coaches come and offer a helping hand – while keeping an eye open for promising prospects.

“We do it for the kids,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “Not all of the kids are going to have an opportunity to play Division I. There’s an awful lot of very good high school players out here, and they’d be good junior-college and Division-II players.

“We do it to just try and help out everybody. It makes for a good relationship with everybody, and I think the kids like the fact that there are a lot of different coaches out here.”

This week’s slate is the busiest for the KU camps. A three-day overnight skills camp for high school players wrapped up Tuesday, around the same time that junior-high players were arriving in Lawrence for a similar camp. That session will wrap up Thursday.

Omaha Westside high school quarterback Ron Kellogg heaves a pass over the middle to a receiver. Kellogg participated in a Kansas University football camp Tuesday morning at the KU practice fields.

In all, Mangino estimated that the eight camps could bring in as many as 1,000 total attendees. That ranges from a kid’s camp to a lineman camp, a kicking and punting camp and even a satellite camp in Wichita.

Camp season at Kansas will wrap up Saturday, when a new idea is tried – a one-day camp exclusively for high school seniors.

“We tinker around with our camps,” Mangino said. “Every year, we study our camps at the end of the summer and decide what would be best for the needs of our campers.”

¢ Culture shock: KU’s incoming freshman now are on campus, taking summer school to get a head start on academics, while also participating in summer workouts.

“The preliminary report is that they’re coming around,” Mangino said. “It’s a new challenge for them, and they’re just trying to feel their way around the campus and summer classes and easing their way into workouts.”

¢ Not so sure: Several preseason college football preview magazines are in bookstores, and each one’s assessment of KU is a little different.

Athlon’s, for example, picks Kansas to finish second in the Big 12 North, with cornerback Aqib Talib and punter Kyle Tucker earning All-Big 12 honors.

Phil Steele’s College Football Preview, though, isn’t so nice.

“If I based the Big 12 North standings on talent alone,” Steele writes, “I would have KU locked in the cellar.”

He does have Kansas in a three-way tie for fourth place with Kansas State and Iowa State, thanks to schedule strength. He eventually concludes “They do have just 10 returning starters hence the low talent rating, but I see KU getting back to their third bowl game in four years.”