Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold and his staff didn’t need to spend the final hours leading up to the Jayhawks’ season opener further contemplating who would be the No. 1 quarterback. KU announced Friday afternoon, roughly six hours before kickoff, that junior Jason Bean would start in his debut with the program. Bean emerged from a QB competition that lasted throughout preseason camp and remained ...
The depth within the Kansas football team’s running back room took a substantial hit during the preseason, when an injury forced sophomore Daniel Hishaw Jr. to undergo season-ending surgery. Plus, the Jayhawks were down another potential rusher for at least one game, with redshirt freshman Amauri Pesek-Hickson out Friday due to an undisclosed injury. Hishaw had missed practice time recently, leading up to ...
No stranger to starting at center for a Lance Leipold coached football team, former Buffalo standout Mike Novitsky will put on a Kansas football uniform on a game day for the first time this week. Novitsky, a 6-foot-5, 295-pound redshirt junior who started every game at UB the past two seasons, shared his thoughts this week on his new situation, after he followed Leipold, offensive line coach Scott Fuchs and ...
— Kansas vs. South Dakota • 7 p.m. kickoff, David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium • Game-time forecast: 80 degrees, partly sunny, 47% chance of rain • Streaming: ESPN+ • Radio: KLWN, FM 101.7 / AM 1320 Keys for Kansas 1. Reboot the offense During a winless 2020 season under a different coaching regime, the Jayhawks averaged just 15.8 points per game. Over the course of what ended up being a nine-game ...
Two days out from the Kansas football team’s season opener, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki didn’t want to spill the beans about the Jayhawks’ starting quarterback. Kotelnicki told reporters during a video call on Wednesday he thinks the coaching staff will wait and make a “gametime decision” before going with either senior Miles Kendrick, junior Jason Bean or sophomore Jalon Daniels as the ...
This is the ninth year in a row that head coach Lance Leipold will enter a college football season accompanied by both defensive coordinator Brian Borland and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. But Leipold’s right-hand men never have launched into a campaign quite like this. The 2021 season is their first working with Leipold at the Power Five level, and they’re doing so for a University of Kansas ...
In the months since the University of Kansas hired Lance Leipold to lead its football program, veteran Jayhawks running back Velton Gardner doesn’t mind revealing he has watched “almost all” of the video clips of former Buffalo rusher Jaret Patterson that he could get his hands on. With Patterson leading the way for Leipold’s Bulls in 2020, UB led the FBS in yards per carry (6.71) and finished second ...
In the months University of Kansas Athletic Director Travis Goff has spent around the man he hired to rebuild KU’s football program, Lance Leipold’s attention to details and reputation have stood out to the AD. Goff said during his appearance on the “Kansas Football Season Kickoff Show” earlier this week that Leipold’s approach is characterized by accountability. During an interview with Brian Hanni, ...
The first published Kansas football depth chart of the Lance Leipold era, as expected, didn’t reveal the Jayhawks’ starting quarterback for their Week 1 opener. When the program released its two-deep on Monday morning, the QB spot listed senior Miles Kendrick, sophomore Jalon Daniels and junior Jason Bean as starting candidates. So how close is Leipold to naming the No. 1 QB for Friday’s season debut ...
When the Kansas football team opens the season on Friday versus South Dakota, head coach Lance Leipold and his staff will find out more about the Jayhawks’ young secondary. In the meantime, Leipold said the defensive backs — a group in which five of the eight players listed on KU’s first published depth chart are underclassmen — have impressed him this preseason with their athleticism and overall ...
During his 14 previous seasons as a head college football coach, Lance Leipold first won six Division III national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater and then turned a down in the dumps Buffalo program into a bowl game regular. Between Leipold’s eight years with Whitewater and six with the Bulls he amassed a 146-39 career record. And he knows none of that guarantees him anything headed into his first ...
After just a few weeks of observing veteran offensive lineman Colin Grunhard during preseason practices, Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold already is convinced the former Notre Dame walk-on will bring “toughness” and a “blue collar mentality” to the Jayhawks’ offense. “He’s my type of guy on the line. He’s gritty,” Leipold said of Grunhard, a 6-foot-1, 290-pound junior who joined KU as ...
Few football players fresh out of high school possess the abilities necessary to show up on campus and grab the attention and respect of a program’s veteran leader right away. But as soon as the Kansas football team’s spring practices began this offseason, Kenny Logan Jr. started to think Jayson Gilliom had what it took to play a factor in the secondary as a true freshman. Gilliom, who graduated early from ...
If you’re looking for a breakthrough performer for the Kansas football offense this season, you’ll have to scan last year’s statistics for a bit before you find the name of one of the top candidates, Steven McBride. As a true freshman receiver in 2020, McBride ranked 11th on the team in receptions, making four while playing in six games. His position coach, Emmett Jones, foresees Year 2 playing out quite ...
Lance Leipold has led enough preseason football practices in his 15 years as a college head coach that he’s come to expect true freshmen on his teams will hit a wall at some point in August. One of the many qualities Leipold appreciates about Devin Neal is the young Kansas running back is proving to be the exception to that rule. “Man, he’s taken a lot of reps and he’s not tapping out,” Leipold said ...
In just a few weeks, Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold and the assistants he brought with him from Buffalo will lead the Jayhawks into a Big 12 Conference game for the first time. Defensive coordinator Brian Borland expects the new staff members will be abundantly prepared for their first taste of what the league has to offer. “Honestly, we had every Big 12 opponent watched before we showed up ...
It’s nearly game week for the Kansas football team and head coach Lance Leipold. But before those final days of preparation for the opener get here, Leipold and his staff have a few things they want to get accomplished. The Jayhawks’ head coach described what they’re doing this week as methodically chipping away. During practices they’re looking at specific situations they might find themselves in on a ...
If Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold and his staff think there’s a definitive leader in the team’s preseason quarterback competition, he “probably wouldn’t share” that information publicly, Leipold told reporters during a Tuesday video press conference. “Nah, not really,” he replied, when asked whether one of the three candidates had emerged. Just as Leipold figured would be the case — ...
Injuries have affected the Kansas football team’s preseason camp to varying degrees this month, but head coach Lance Leipold said Tuesday he considers the roster to be “in pretty good shape right now” in terms of available personnel. When asked during a video press conference about the general health of his team, Leipold said he thought the Jayhawks were headed in a good direction with a little more than ...
In a group of Kansas football linebackers that doesn’t yet have a wealth of starting experience, their position coach, Chris Simpson, has been on the lookout during the preseason for players he can trust. “Some things are starting to sort themselves out. It’s still a work in progress, and I think it will be for a while,” Simpson said on Sunday, following the Jayhawks’ 15th preseason practice. While ...