Lance Leipold reflects on how he has turned Kansas around so quickly

Kansas head coach Lance Leipold enters his fourth season at the helm after turning around the football program in a major way. Inheriting an 0-9 team prior to his hiring and increasing their win total from two wins, to six wins, to an impressive nine wins last season.

Kansas parted ways with head coach Les Miles in March of 201 and hired Leipold a month later, representing a far-from-ideal timeline in the hiring process. But in the end, it all worked out for the Jayhawks, as Leipold shared the story behind the program’s turnaround from the very beginning with On3’s Andy Staples .

“We were done with our spring practice at Buffalo , I got offered the job at like 7:45 Eastern time and they said the plane was leaving at 1:30. I landed in Lawrence, they took us out to the field, the team had just finished their walkthrough for the spring game, and that was on a Friday,” Leipold explained.

“Met boosters and watched part of the spring game [on] Saturday and the semester was ending, so that was the next component. The guys were going home for two, three weeks and then the portal was being created. So I’m trying to meet guys and trying to make sure that they know that there’s going to be a new opportunity and new vision, and we’re fortunate.”

Leipold made an immediate impact with the Jayhawks, winning his coaching debut with the team which represented Kansas’ first win in over 22 months following their third winless season in program history.

Kansas went on to show steady improvement under Leipold, appearing in back-to-back bowl the past two seasons for the first time since 2007 and 2008. But it did not come with it’s fair share of challenges.

“But also, and I think you probably covered this along the way, this program struggled being under scholarship. Got itself upside down with the 25 hard count and when they got rid of the hard count we were able to take advantage of that and bring in players,” Leipold explained. “Our portal recruiting has been very solid. I don’t know if every guy, in fact, we probably had less guys in the portal that start than half. But what they’ve done is added that layer in the two-deep and the constant competition in the program that we desperately needed and that’s really helped us.”

Leipold conducted a mass overhaul of Kansas’ football culture and program as a whole, a program that’s even struggled to reach the NCAA limit of 85 scholarships. But through making the necessary changes both big and small, Leipold was able to turn things around in Lawrence much faster than expected. As the Jayhawks enter the 2024 season with high expectations for the first time in a long time.

“And again, I think our players once they saw how we’re going about it, we moved the morning practices, we did some things we said. What we said we’re going to do with them, and just in the day to day operations, we did. And I think that started to build the trust and we started to build confidence. And a few players came over from Buffalo that were great leaders and also lead through example, but also showed belief in what we do and how it works and I really think it helped us kind of close the gap sooner than later,” Leipold concluded.

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