photo by: Emma Crouch/Kansas Athletics

Kansas head coach Dan Fitzgerald during practice at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence, on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.

Kansas baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald is in it for the long haul.

“We were so specific in coming to Kansas and had so many reasons why KU was the fit,” he said on Wednesday, “and then as we’ve gotten into this three years, it’s just been confirmed over and over and over. And working alongside (athletic director Travis Goff) and (sport administrator Sean Lester) and my entire staff and the entire community and Lawrence and all that, you fall further in love with what we’re doing.”

The new contract extension Fitzgerald inked in June, after the Jayhawks completed the best regular season in recent program history, has him locked in through the end of the 2031 season.

“It’s hard to articulate how excited I am to know that we’re going to be doing this for a while longer,” he said.

However many years he remains in Lawrence, though, he’s likely to see quite a bit more change in the world of college baseball.

Since his arrival during the summer of 2022, the entire model of college athletics has shifted dramatically, most recently with the adoption of the House v. NCAA settlement and its associated rules that officially went into effect on Tuesday.

“Three years ago, rev share was not a term associated with anything in college sports,” he recalled. “It was like a violation to even bring up that. There was no thought of that. And NIL was such a different entity than it’s been the last two years.”

The rule changes ushered in by House mean that schools can pay athletes directly. They also mean that baseball teams are now limited to 34 players apiece (excluding Designated Student Athletes who would have lost spots due to the new rules), but any of those players can be on scholarship — whereas before, college baseball teams had access to just 11.7 scholarships.

Any new money spent on scholarships will be deducted from a school’s possible revenue-sharing total of $20.5 million, but some baseball programs have already vowed to furnish all 34 scholarships.

The announcement of Fitzgerald’s new deal included a suggestion that KU would increase scholarships and pay players to some extent, as well as invest in baseball facilities — though these provisions were not part of the actual text of the contract. Fitzgerald said on Wednesday that these ideas were not necessarily part of contract discussions as much as “more of just where we’re evolving as a program.”

He added that he feels KU is well situated in the new era of college baseball (although, as he pointed out, “I’ve never met a coach that didn’t want more”).

“We’re in good shape,” he said. “I think everyone’s model is different. I think everyone has their niche of what’s the best bang for your buck or most affordable way to spread your money, and we certainly have ours.

“… I think we’re also in a spot where we can continue to grow, and that’s something we’ve discussed a lot as a staff and with our administration. There are things we’re doing this year, but it’s going to be different next year. Our numbers do increase next year. I don’t think any of us know what this is going to look like three years from now.”

In the near term, KU has plunged directly into its first offseason under the revenue-sharing system, which also happens to be a year in which it has to replace a great deal of production from the memorable 2025 squad. Six members of its usual starting lineup last season graduated. Two more could potentially turn pro in the upcoming MLB Draft. A few top bench pieces entered the portal, as did the Saturday night starting pitcher (who is also a likely draft pick).

“It’s overwhelming to think about replacing all of them,” he said, “but we had a great start with our class that we already had coming in, so a lot of this is fine-tuning.”

KU has continued to add at a relentless pace from a variety of sources. In the span of about a week, the Jayhawks got commitments from catcher Tyson Owens (Cochise College) and infielder David Hogg II (LSU), a former top-100 recruit, as well as pitchers Darius Henderson (Salt Lake Community College), Madden Seidl (Emporia High School) and two-way standout Josh Dykhoff (Minnesota Crookston).

“I feel like we have a visit every day,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve had a billion kids on campus, and we’ve been everywhere recruiting, both recruiting guys back and recruiting new players, and it’s a little bit of everything.”

He did acknowledge that the success of the 2025 campaign — an NCAA Tournament berth, increased fan support, All-American selections — has in some ways bolstered KU’s recruiting prowess.

“I think all those things kind of pile into that arena of drawing attention and therefore recruiting becoming maybe not easier, by any means, but certainly we’re getting more returned phone calls than we would have otherwise,” he said. “You definitely see that. We’re in the game with a higher-level player for sure.”

However, the incoming players still have to possess, he said, the sort of character and mental makeup that he and his staff have pursued throughout his tenure.