photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

The Kansas football team huddles up before the start of practice Thursday, July 24, 2025 in Lawrence.

The “competitive edge” of the Kansas football program, strength coach Matt Gildersleeve said on Thursday, is “back like never before.”

That’s the result of bringing in an estimated 50 new scholarship players over the course of the offseason, all of whom were guaranteed an opportunity to contend, and who therefore demonstrated an appropriate amount of fire over the course of Gildersleeve’s six-week summer conditioning program.

“There’s even things that we were able to do this summer just from a standpoint of how we challenge these guys … nobody’s safe, and so they’re going to do those things because we don’t really have a lot of ones and twos right now,” Gildersleeve said. “We got a lot of guys that are fighting for spots.”

That’s a change from years past, such as last season, when numerous veterans had been firmly ensconced in starting roles. Now there are spots open all across the roster, and in practices like Thursday’s, the first of this year’s fall training camp, the fight is borne out on the field.

“If there’s one thing that’s palpable and you can really feel,” Gildersleeve said, “(it’s) that edge of kind of the chip on the shoulder, where I think we operate better with the mentality of our program.”

Unifying the program under a common culture is one of Gildersleeve’s principal responsibilities and was his focus over the course of this past summer in particular, and he emerged pleased with the results among the new players. That included, by way of quantitive of proof, a cumulative zero missed academic appointments and 500-plus hours of community service during the six-week period, high-water marks for KU in recent years since head coach Lance Leipold’s arrival.

“We’re not spending time repeating ourselves or going back,” Leipold said, “or (repeating) our things that are important to this program and are really nonnegotiables about being where you’re supposed to be, making all appointments. We’re not spending all this extra time and energy.”

On the field, the high proportion of newcomers didn’t make for a bumpy start, at least to hear quarterback Jalon Daniels tell it: “It’s not like we just went over the very first install, installing an offense.”

“Hats off to all of the new players who come into the program eager to learn,” Daniels added, “eager to be able to learn how we do things, and have been able to execute, especially in a day-one practice.”

Daniels, who was back practicing at full speed after an offseason knee surgery limited him in the spring, would know what an effective first day looks like. This was his last one, as he enters his sixth and final collegiate season.

“I look back at all the fall camps that I’ve had, even the fall camp when coach Leipold wasn’t here yet,” Daniels said. “I look at every single year and try to be able to take in the experience, and today was the very first day of the last one. (I) went out there, had a great experience, had fun with the guys playing football, because at the end of the day that’s kind of what we’ve all been looking forward to.”

Signs of progress

The KU football team has had a front-row seat for the ongoing construction of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, as it practices just across the way at the Murfin Family Practice Fields. As Daniels noted, the Jayhawks can see the “Rock Chalk” lettering emblazoned on the western stands while they’re going through drills.

Leipold got to see the new Kivisto Field firsthand for himself on Wednesday, exactly a month before the Jayhawks kick off their season and open the new venue against Fresno State on Aug. 23, but there have also been somewhat subtler indicators of the work taking place.

“My wife said it to me last night, she asked me if I washed my car,” Leipold said on Thursday. “And I said no, and I hadn’t washed it, like, for a week. But with all the construction and things blowing, my car was always dirty, and washing it, it would just be dirty the next day.”

That’s not the case anymore, and it’s an indication of how close this phase of construction is to being completed, after it started following the 2023 season.

“It’s really coming together now, progressing, the field’s getting laid down,” defensive end Dean Miller said. “I can’t be more excited.”

Miller and the Jayhawks will get a chance to practice on that new field on the night of Aug. 1, at essentially the halfway point of fall camp. Leipold said the hope is that KU will get multiple opportunities to do so by the end of camp.

Some players have already been on the field, as they “leaked out there” on Wednesday, Leipold said.

“Guys are excited,” he added. “And I hope our fans are excited about it, because it is definitely a game-changing structure for us. It’s a program statement. It’s everything that’s needed. It’s going to be exciting, and I think it’ll be something as we get closer and we go practice in there and it becomes a reality, it’s going to be something special.”