Defensive Coordinator Brian Borland talks with media members on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at the Anderson Family Football Complex.

There were points during Brian Borland’s long coaching career, he admits, when he never thought he would become a coordinator for a Power Five college football program.

In Borland’s industry, countless coaches try to work their way through the ranks, chasing the chance to eventually catch a break in one of college football’s top conferences. More than one could count never get the type of opportunity Borland has as the new defensive coordinator for Kansas football.

“I am really humbled,” the longtime assistant to head coach Lance Leipold said earlier this month, during his first press conference at KU.

Asked how excited he was to be competing at this level, giving him a shot to plan against Big 12 defenses, Borland was prompted to take a trip down memory lane — or US-59 South — to when his career was just getting started.

Way back in the early 1990s, Borland was an assistant coach at Baker University, just south of Lawrence, in Baldwin City.

“Full-time job. Part-time pay,” Borland recalled.

The reminiscing also brought to mind for the 58-year-old coaching lifer some stray thoughts that popped into his head occasionally from 1991-94, when he worked at Baker.

“Man, I wonder if I could coach at KU. I betcha I could. I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance.”

During his time at Baker, Borland said he rarely made it to Lawrence and never met Glen Mason, the Jayhawks’ head coach at that time.

On one occasion, during a Baker postseason run, the team practiced at Memorial Stadium. And while that was the extent of his exposure to KU football, Borland said sometimes he thought about the then Big 8 program up the highway.

“It’s 10 miles up the road, man. I wonder what those dudes are doing today,” he recollected.

Some 27 years after Borland moved on from Baker, he finds himself back in northeast Kansas, this time working in a high profile position for the football program at the state’s flagship university.

“It’s good to actually be able to realize some of those things,” he said.

Since he last worked in the Sunflower State, Borland spent the majority of his time at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, coaching for 21 seasons with the Warhawks. It wasn’t until his 14th year with the program that he teamed up with Leipold, starting a head coach and coordinator pairing that has remained intact since 2007, spanning eight seasons at Whitewater and six more at Buffalo before the two got to KU.

Leipold describes his longtime colleague as a quiet, humble coach. The Jayhawks’ new head coach said Borland’s defenses are renowned for being fundamentally sound.

“I’ve always been impressed with Brian, how he goes through game preparation,” Leipold shared.

Through their years working together, Leipold said when Whitewater and UB teams were playing well, it often was tied to them executing in the second halves of close football games, when defensive stops were imperative.

“He’s able to get a good read on things and go that way,” Leipold said of Borland making second half adjustments.

The bond between KU’s head coach and defensive coordinator actually predates their deep-rooted professional relationship. As Borland put it, they grew up in “rival” Wisconsin towns, not much more than five miles apart.

Borland lived in Fort Atkinson, where his father, Glen, was the high school football coach. Leipold lived just north, in Jefferson, where his father, Ken, was the high school basketball coach.

Some of the earliest memories Borland has of Leipold are from when the now head football coach was in junior high and would travel to Fort Atkinson for basketball camps. Borland can still picture a young Leipold dribbling between folding chairs in a gymnasium.

The two kept in contact as they grew up, as well as after they graduated from high school and college, and ended up both pursuing the same profession.

In fact, when Borland was still at Baker and both were just getting started in their respective coaching journeys, Borland let Leipold know about a potential job at Baker. Borland said he was embarrassed to even bring it up to his old pal from Wisconsin, because it involved taking care of the stadium, cleaning out the locker room and other such duties, plus some coaching.

“Thankfully he said no, and obviously things worked out from there,” Borland said.

At the time, both coaches were just “trying to stay in it,” Borland added.

“Sometimes at that age and at those levels, you’re just trying to find something,” he said. “So you don’t have to go be a vitamin salesman or whatever. You’re just trying to stay in the profession somehow.”

Through the years, Borland’s résumé has expanded to include job titles not related to football at all, such as college instructor, track and field coach and softball coach.

At Baker, he wanted to stick around and inquired about getting paid more. He was informed the softball job was open. So he took it.

“I better get a book or a video tape or something and try to figure out what the heck’s going on,” he joked regarding his thinking at the time.

All of those side hustles ultimately helped Borland as a football coach, too. His organization and time management skills improved because of those experiences, he said. And his stints as a head coach in other sports — Borland has never been a head football coach — gave him some insights, as well.

“You see things from a little bit different perspective also, so I can certainly relate to at least some of the things that Lance goes through,” Borland explained.

With his 37th fall on the sidelines a few months away, Borland’s career has taken him from graduate assistant jobs at Wisconsin and Florida, to assistant coaching gigs at Arizona Western, Baker and Whitewater, to working as a defensive coordinator for 15 consecutive years for Leipold — at Whitewater, UB and now KU.

“As good fortune would have it, I find myself here and I’m so excited about the opportunity,” Borland said.

“I know I’m a lot closer to the end of my career than the beginning, so to be able to — quite honestly — hopefully finish it in a situation like this, man, I can’t tell you what it means to me. It means a lot.”