photo by: Screenshot from Kansas Athletics video

New Kansas offensive line coach Daryl Agpalsa speaks to reporters at KU's indoor practice facility on Thursday, March 7, 2024.

When Kansas coach Lance Leipold recently described the circumstances of former offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki’s departure, he pointed out that he and Kotelnicki had realized they’d been working together for 10 years — “Shoot, that’s almost three times as (long as) most marriages,” as he put it.

“He had said for him to continue that maybe looking and working under a different head coach and opportunity would help him,” Leipold said. “So I have to respect that.”

Leipold filled Kotelnicki’s position with Jeff Grimes, a rare external hire for a coach who for a long time had built an unparalleled level of staff continuity. But when it came time for Leipold to hire a new offensive line coach after Scott Fuchs left for the NFL, he brought back someone who had already gotten the sort of perspective Kotelnicki was looking for — a chance to see how other programs work — after previously working for Leipold.

Daryl Agpalsa served as an offensive line coach under Leipold (and Kotelnicki, as it happens) at Wisconsin-Whitewater and Buffalo, but left for a different job in the Mid-American Conference — at Northern Illinois — a couple of seasons before most of Leipold’s staff made the jump to KU.

Now, he’s back in the fold, and told reporters of Leipold, “You know what’s kind of funny? He hadn’t changed one bit.”

Agpalsa, on the other hand, has changed, at least in his football acumen, and he hopes it’s for the better.

“I think any time you have an opportunity to go away, and to learn something new and something different,” he told the Journal-World, “whether it be coordinating more run game plans, working in a different system and offense, working underneath a new head coach which I did at Northern, what I’m excited about is I think I’m a better version of what I was when I was with him at Buffalo.

“And the exciting part for me is to bring that now to Kansas, with the same values, with the same thought process, but maybe with more experience.”

Some of the faces are the same, but Leipold said he wanted one prominent new face — Grimes — to be comfortable with bringing in Agpalsa.

“Daryl will always be somebody that I would have in mind,” Leipold said, “but our whole offensive staff sat in on them … It was unanimous that Daryl Agpalsa was going to be the best fit for this job.”

So far, Agpalsa has found a good match in Grimes, who himself spent about two decades as an offensive line coach before becoming the offensive coordinator in BYU and Baylor (but will work with the tight ends at KU).

“I think he’s been fantastic, man,” Agpalsa told the Journal-World. “He’s been fantastic. He’s very open, very collaborative, will listen. For me, just as an offensive line coach, him being an offensive line coach and doing it for a long time, him asking me questions, things maybe he didn’t succeed at to help me move forward in this league, he’s been a great resource.”

Agpalsa and Grimes alike will be tasked with bringing cohesion to what could otherwise be a patchwork line for KU. This year’s personnel features familiar starters like Michael Ford Jr. and Bryce Cabeldue; contributors looking to take on greater roles in Kobe Baynes, Logan Brown and Calvin Clements; and transfers such as Shane Bumgardner and Darrell Simmons Jr.

Agpalsa said he’s going to adhere to “the ‘KISS’ method, keep it simple,” so that his players can play fast.

“I want them to be tough, I want them to be physical and I want them to be smart,” he told reporters Thursday.

Instilling those attributes begins with connecting with his players on a personal level.

“The most important thing I want to make sure they understand is they can trust me,” he said. “The most important thing I want to do as a teacher and a coach with this unit is to build an ultimate level of trust and build relationships with them.”