With only 12 returning players on its roster, the Kansas baseball team spent its offseason trying to make 39 individual players fit into the larger puzzle of Dan Fitzgerald’s overall vision for the team.

After two weeks of play, the Jayhawks have apparently found a good fit, as they are off to their first 7-0 start since 2014, and set for their home opener against Omaha at Hoglund Ballpark on Thursday at 3 p.m.

While Fitzgerald emphasizes experience and age when building his teams — hence his propensity for recruiting from lower levels of collegiate baseball, collecting the No. 1 junior college class for three straight years — humility and teamwork are two big components that have led Kansas to its best start in over a decade.

“(The 7-0 start) gives us a lot more confidence than what we had in the fall,” said sophomore Cooper Moore, one of few returners. “I mean, we kind of knew we were going to be good, we had the right pieces. We just didn’t know how everyone was going to fit into the lineup. And we still have a lot of guys who haven’t fit into the lineup completely. I mean, I think it just shows that we’re going to be a really successful team if we stick to it.”

Not only is Kansas’ start its best of the decade, but the Jayhawks also hold the No. 2 strength of schedule nationally as of Monday and are ranked No. 1 in RPI because of this, as they entered the week with all seven of their wins qualifying as Quadrant 1 victories. While these numbers have shown the nation that Kansas is a force to be reckoned with out of the Big 12, Fitzgerald and his team haven’t paid much mind to the hype surrounding a ranking that fluctuates a lot week by week.

“You know the RPI thing right now is, it’s like your GPA after the first pop quiz in your semester class,” Fitzgerald said, adding that he didn’t even know the team was ranked No. 1 in the metric.

“We can smile about it, for sure. It’s a pretty cool thing, but it’s not something we want to focus too much on, because that can change in one game, two games,” Moore added.

The best of Kansas baseball is yet to come, but a strong start built on a solid foundation has brought a unique air to the clubhouse through the first two weeks of the season.

“It’s been special. You feel kind of a giddiness around the team, there’s a lot of excitement,” senior infielder Chase Diggins said. “We know it’s only seven games and that we have a long season to go, but I think that’s where the fun part is because we can still continue to grow.”

The Jayhawks are ready to keep leaning on each other and heed the advice of their head coach, with his nearly 25 years of baseball experience.

“I’m proud of the start,” Fitzgerald said. “The two things that we talk about the most are being an unbelievable teammate and playing your tail off. And we’ve done that in all seven games, and we’ve really done that since August. I’m proud of the makeup of the team and the competitive nature.

“It hasn’t been real clean, it’s not the prettiest baseball you’ve ever seen in those first seven games, which it rarely is, but the competitive piece and the togetherness piece has been outstanding, so proud of the effort.”

While Fitzgerald’s coaching staff always had confidence in the individual talent of each player on the roster, the team has had to work hard to find cohesion as a group of athletes from around the world with different experiences at different levels of play.

“It’s been a constant build-up really from the fall… I think there were 12 or so returners, so it’s definitely a different kind of chemistry compared to last year,” Diggins said. “You want it to be natural. You don’t want to force something that’s not there. You don’t want to build on something that ends up being forced… And I feel like Fitz has done a really good job on that, and our other coaching staff praise that a fair bit overall.”

While this unique team is finding a way to put all of the pieces together to start the season, the Jayhawks are aware that there’s a lot more baseball to play. Already, though, things feel different from last year, as Fitzgerald has much greater depth in his bullpen than anything he’s had before. This gives them the luxury of a larger margin of error if something doesn’t go to plan, as the coaching staff figures out a way to make all of their pieces fit.

Fitzgerald’s job becomes a bit easier when the clubhouse culture that they have established is present throughout, as he knows everyone on his team is willing to do whatever it takes to win, no matter what that may mean for them.

“That always comes back to makeup, because if the makeup is there, and they’ve got some grit and toughness and they’ll work, they’re going to find their ceiling,” he said. “I think leadership on a baseball field is so different, because… it’s much more about the guys that can prepare on a daily basis, and really, they just hook it up every day.”

The Jayhawks will now host Omaha for a four-game series, with Saturday’s game to be played in Wichita at Equity Bank Park in partnership with the Wichita Wind Surge, the Double-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.