Kansas football director of sports performance Matt Gildersleeve

The continuity Lance Leipold aims to have with his football coaching staff at Kansas will carry over to the Jayhawks’ strength and conditioning.

Kansas Athletics Inc. and Kansas Team Health announced Thursday the hiring of former Buffalo staffer Matt Gildersleeve, who will serve as the KU football program’s director of sports performance.

“Matt is going to be a tremendous addition to our staff here in Lawrence,” Leipold said in a statement of his former UB staffer, calling Gildersleeve “exceptional” in his line of work.

Leipold described Gildersleeve, who led the Bulls’ strength and conditioning the past two years, as a “high character” coach who “does an outstanding job establishing culture and accountability, which is needed in a winning football program.”

According to Leipold, the team’s new strength coach did a “great job” at UB, and KU’s head coach is “very excited” about the impact he thinks Gildersleeve will have with the Jayhawks.

Prior to his stint at Buffalo, Gildersleeve worked at Akron, spending the final three years of his seven in the athletic department as the football team’s strength and conditioning director.

In his football playing days, Gildersleeve was a tight end at Division III Mount Union. He was on a national title winning team in 2008 before graduating in 2012.

Leipold said recently, during his appearance on KU’s “Hawk Talk” radio show, that he expects the strength program to be one of the foundations of KU football. Beginning this summer, when players return to campus for classes and offseason training, Leipold said KU’s strength coach will help establish accountability with the players.

“We want to make sure that we’re going to be an effort-based program,” Leipold said, adding the goal is for that approach to become a “player-led” mentality.

“In our program, we don’t get too fancy on a lot of different things,” Leipold explained.

The head coach offered up a few questions that the staff will ask of the players.

“Can we trust you? Are you doing what you’re supposed to do? And are you doing it at a high level?”

The summer strength and conditioning work that’s ahead of the Jayhawks, Leipold said, will be a key component of the new staff’s culture-building.

“We want accountability as far as punctuality, coachability — are you coachable? Are you giving your best effort? And when we’re able to strain and do those things,” Leipold said, “we believe that great things happen.”