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

Kansas kicker Seth Keller kicks a field goal Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, against Oklahoma in Lawrence.

In the fourth quarter of Kansas’ season opener against Missouri State, which started as an unexpectedly close game but developed into a 31-point blowout, the Jayhawks let redshirt sophomore kicker Owen Piepergerdes attempt a late extra point. He made it.

The development wasn’t especially surprising on its face; he and Texas State transfer Seth Keller were listed as co-starters on KU’s depth chart (and have been since). But head coach Lance Leipold, speaking three days after the game on Sept. 4, said that Keller was in fact the starter.

“I think he did a fine job, and we can’t make it ‘Miss a kick, you’re out,’ and all that,” Leipold said at the time. “So right now, it’s charted on a regular basis, it’s been through consistency. I think it was nice to get Owen out there for one. Again, that’s a balance of trying to get guys out there just like it is at any other position.”

He did add that there would be “roles for both those guys as we move along.”

At first, there was no role needed for Piepergerdes. Keller attempted and made every other kick in the Missouri State game, as he would through the first five games of the year. He began the season 6-for-6 on field goals, including successful kicks from 41 and 44 yards, and 20-for-20 on extra points; his early success was heralded as a symbol of KU’s special teams resurgence under coach Taiwo Onatolu and new assistant Sean Snyder.

“We talked about how much improvement we’ve made there,” Leipold said Monday, “and now all of a sudden we’ve kind of hit a little bit of a rut.”

Fast forward two months and it has indeed to some extent become “Miss a kick, you’re out” for Keller. And neither he nor Piepergerdes seems to be benefiting from the arrangement.

Wide-ranging struggles

In both the Oklahoma State loss on Oct. 15 and last Saturday’s victory over Iowa State, Leipold replaced Keller with Piepergerdes in response to early issues.

In Stillwater, it was because Keller — who was 117-for-118 on extra points in his Division I career at that point and hadn’t missed since Nov. 21, 2020 — could barely get a kick over the Cowboys’ front. He had one extra point blocked that was called back due to offsides, made his second try, then committed a false start before another point-after attempt and had it blocked.

“Seth, he’s had some low kicks,” Leipold said after that game. “I think a lot went into it. They were getting solid push, they have a lot of length in their defensive line, getting their hands up, so I decided to make the switch.”

Piepergerdes came into that game and KU botched a third point-after try that didn’t even get off the ground, before he eventually converted one in the fourth quarter.

That wasn’t even the first point-after with Piepergerdes that didn’t pan out. A week earlier, with the Jayhawks leading 37-6 against UCF, Piepergerdes came in for the try, holder Grayden Addison couldn’t handle Luke Hosford’s snap and the Knights took it back for a defensive conversion.

That switch, as inconsequential as it was in a 51-22 victory, seemed to precipitate the following weeks of special-teams struggles. Keller came back in and missed a 32-yard field goal late in that same game. Then came Oklahoma State, and then in the upset victory over Oklahoma, Keller was wide and fairly short on a 41-yard attempt.

He had a similar result on a 42-yarder to close the first quarter at Iowa State.

KU had already converted a fourth-and-10 from the Cyclones’ 34 on its opening drive, but later, with a fourth-and-9 from the 33 and 43 seconds left in the first half, the Jayhawks sent out Piepergerdes for his first field goal attempt of the season from 50 yards out. (He made his one and only prior attempt, from 36 in the Liberty Bowl last year.) The kick went wide, KU ceded a few more yards in field position to Iowa State than if it had, say, thrown an incomplete pass on fourth down, and the Cyclones went down and got a field goal of their own before the half.

Piepergerdes did make a pair of extra points in the second half and Keller did not return.

Between the two kickers, the Jayhawks are 3-for-7 with one missed extra point in their last four games, which does not include the point-after attempts that didn’t yield actual kicks. KU has not made a field goal whose distance starts with a “3” in a Big 12 Conference game this season and its overall accuracy in that same period (50%) is tied with Houston and UCF for the worst in the league.

It’s not been, in short, the consistency the Jayhawks were looking for in the wake of former kicker Jacob Borcila’s 16-for-28 performance over the prior two seasons. They are lucky that missed field goals did not significantly derail either of their last two historic victories. But it can’t help that KU has changed its approach — sometimes squeezing in random PATs for Piepergerdes, sometimes not and sometimes replacing Keller with him altogether — from game to game.

photo by: Chance Parker/Journal-World photo

Kansas kicker Owen Piepergerdes watches practice on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023 at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.

The problem with switching

Piepergerdes, who is 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds, has a strong leg, hence the 50-yard attempt. (He has made a habit over the last few weeks of posting videos on X of 60-yard kicks he has made in pregame warmups.) He is also a lefty, unlike the 5-foot-8, 170-pound Keller. He was one of four kickers in camp for the Jayhawks, along with Charlie Weinrich and kickoff specialist Tabor Allen, plus three more punters.

“Yeah, you know, some are taller, some are shorter, some like catching the ball in a different spot or like being led,” the long snapper Hosford said before the season. “Everyone has their preferences and once you get to know them well enough and know what they like, it’s pretty easy to give them what they want.”

Leipold said that the greatest burden, when adapting to two different kickers, is in fact placed on Addison, the holder and backup punter.

“I think some of the times that’s probably more on myself than, definitely, Grayden, is that when we’ve had a miscue there, (we’ve been) asking him to maybe switch it up midgame,” Leipold said Monday, referencing the bobbled snaps against UCF and Oklahoma State.

He also compared Keller’s recent struggles to a run of poor form in golf or baseball, adding that minor ailments have slowed down the redshirt senior in practice at times.

“You can be hot and be on a streak and then all of a sudden you can’t put the ball in play,” Leipold said. “I don’t want to say he’s at that point. But he’s battled a couple things health-wise. Nothing major, but there’s times we’ve had to reduce his work and do some things, and sometimes you compensate.

“But he’s a very mature young man, and I know he continues to work hard and though we’re all disappointed, we want to make sure he can clean that up.”

Leipold’s plan

Leipold said Monday that KU is “going to continue to use both.” The apparent difference will be that the Jayhawks will do so with more of a concrete plan.

For example, as the offense reaches midfield, Hosford and Addison will take reps on both the left and right sides as the kickers are kicking into practice nets.

Leipold said Piepergerdes “has earned some opportunities.”

“We’ll continue to look through that through the week, to decide who will handle extra points and who’ll be doing the short and long field goal situation,” Leipold said. “I can see us using both.”

The Jayhawks host Texas Tech at 11 a.m. Saturday.