Here's what Lance Leipold is watching for in Kansas football's spring game
Jordan Guskey
NEW ORLEANS — As Kansas football coach Lance Leipold talked Monday, in the hours leading up to the men’s basketball team’s national championship game in New Orleans, he spoke again to what the run those Jayhawks were on could do for his own program.
It provided Leipold the opportunity to get out to places like Chicago and New Orleans, and get to know more fans and donors who he feels have seen the progress his team made in the latter part of its 2021 season. He thinks there are likely a lot of transferrable things his program can use, from what he’s seen Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self’s do, and intends to implement as much as possible. Leipold believes winning cultures can transcend through an athletic department.
And Saturday, less than week after the Jayhawks’ men’s basketball team captured that national title, Leipold’s program will hold its spring preview event at 1 p.m. at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. The Jayhawks will have the chance to show off the gains of the work they’ve been doing in recent weeks. It’s a chance for Kansas football to further the momentum the end of this past season provided, in front of fans.
“Some of our players, like (senior safety) Kenny Logan (Jr.), have said watching our basketball team go through everything that they’ve gone through — it motivates them to try to reach that type of stage and play to their fullest,” Leipold said Monday. “And, for our team to reach its fullest capabilities.”
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Leipold said last week that this event his program will hold this upcoming Saturday will be a combination of a practice and a scrimmage, with game-like situations. He wants it to be a day of development, while also an opportunity for fans to see the Jayhawks in action. He said the team needs every practice at this point, and Saturday will be a chance to test how focused his players are when there’s a crowd — however large that crowd may be.
The plan as of Monday was to practice Wednesday instead of Tuesday, due to the basketball game Monday night, and then Thursday ahead of Saturday. Leipold expressed a desire to, in that time, continue to evaluate his guys. He added they’re excited to perform in front of fans Saturday.
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One area worth watching during the spring event might be line play. Because, while Leipold doesn’t plan to finalize a rotation on either side of the ball until fall camp concludes, as of last week he was still looking for offensive linemen who are in the second unit and beyond to play with more consistency. But it’s not the only area he pointed to Monday, when asked if there are any players whose performances he’ll be watching for.
“Consistently, up front, I think our first group of offensive linemen have continued to show progress. Our second, third line is still in a youthful, development-type set that we want to see that under evaluation,” Leipold said. “The newcomers, all in all, have done a nice job and now we’ll kind of see them in a game-like situation at least part of that day on Saturday.”
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Leipold, on junior quarterback Jalon Daniels, continued: “Jalon’s just starting to get a rhythm of getting back in there, so we want to see him, kind of again, take strides like he did that last month of the season.”
Fans will also likely be looking to Kansas’ wide receivers, too. With the departure of Kwamie Lassiter II, there’s the potential for redshirt sophomore Lawrence Arnold, junior Luke Grimm and redshirt junior Trevor Wilson to step up in Lassiter’s stead. Leipold mentioned all three, in addition to junior Steven McBride and redshirt freshman Tanaka Scott, last week when talking about his takeaways from scrimmages the Jayhawks have already had and whose play had stood out in different ways.
There will, of course, be further time for development ahead of the season. Leipold mentioned that last week as well how the players will return to get more work done in the weight room ahead of the start of their summer program. But there’ll certainly be eyes on those wide receivers, transfers who’ve joined the program and more Saturday as many watch to see how Kansas looks at this point.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.