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I don’t need to introduce Lance Leipold to this newsletter. The new head man in Kansas was tremendously popular around these parts for the program that he built in the famously difficult Buffalo job, establishing one of the MAC’s best rushing attacks and a sound defense despite a severe talent disadvantage. The Bulls came up just short of a MAC title in 2020, but they ran the hell out of the football with halfbacks Jaret Patterson and Kevin Marks Jr., capping one of the best seasons in school history with a bowl win over Marshall.
Seemingly satisfied with his job in Buffalo, Leipold – one of the best program builders in college football – took on another immense challenge. Following Les Miles’ dismissal, Leipold slotted into the Kansas head coaching job, an unthinkable difficult move made even harder by the fact that he didn’t arrive until after spring ball, hired at the end of April because of the timing on Miles’ firing. For a new coach with a new system to install, there aren’t worse circumstances out there.
Add onto that a serious lack of talent on Kansas’ roster, stoked by years of neglect and poor hires, and you have perhaps the first example of a year negative two, or even negative three, in college football’s recent history. Leipold knew that when he took the job and signaled it just about every time he stepped in front of a microphone, speaking of slow builds, taking things day by day, and being in it for the long haul. When a coach says that, he isn’t talking to you. He’s talking to his athletic department and his boosters, telling them both privately and publicly that while he thinks this can work, it’s going to take quite some time.
“I'm not a guy that's moved around a lot,” Leipold said during his introductory press conference. “And this is a place I want to be for a very, very long time.
“The goal is to win championships, pure and simple. One day at a time. Become a consistent winner. And I’m very confident that you’re going to see consistency and improvement throughout the season.”
For further reading between the lines, Leipold all but established his program culture in that first chat with media in Lawrence, too. He spoke of winning with the players that Kansas has, a not-so-subtle jab at his predecessors, pretty much all of whom have panicked and turned to transfers and JUCO players to save their jobs once they lost patience for the slow build.
“Our plan is to win and win with the players who are here right now,” Leipold said. “I feel very strongly about that.”
Granted, it’s a lot easier to say that in year one than it is in year three. Very few coaches plan on panicking to save their jobs. But Leipold has a background that supports his commitment to building up a program slowly – more so than any of the other coaches that Kansas has tabbed to run the program in the last decade and change. He nabbed a few Buffalo transfers to help set up culture this offseason, but for the most part, I believe him on this.
His first recruiting class is currently very, very small (five commitments) but the players in the class and the top targets on the board are high school prospects, and Leipold’s staff, while largely new to the air, seems to be getting comfortable in the traditional Kansas recruiting areas. Two commits hail from north Texas and one is out of Southlake Carroll, a school that Kansas would like to be involved in down the road.
The Jayhawks have a safety from Missouri, a wideout from Alabama and an offensive tackle from Michigan. Among the top targets, two more hail from Texas, and a third is out of Arkansas. The final rankings will not be pretty, but establishing these connections early is going to be tremendously important for that slow build, and the perceived slight of recruiting JUCO kids over high schoolers among high school coaches is a large part of what killed previous tenures here. Leipold isn’t doing that early on, and from the sounds of it, he doesn’t plan to do it at all. That’s a very good thing for Kansas.
Of course, the next part of building up a program is playing the games, which is where those year negative two or negative three qualifiers come in. This is a bad football team and it’s not going to suddenly get a whole lot better with slow build tactics. Doing this thing the right way is needed and will pay off in the long run, but the reason that Leipold has emphasized patience so much is that losing football games has a way of corroding confidence.
We always hear in year one that a coach will have as long a leash as he needs at this difficult job. Then, three or four years in, people start talking about the need to move on, because said coach is still only 3-9 in year four. This is going to be that sort of situation, and patience – actual patience – is a must for Kansas to get going in the right direction.
That said, one of the most valuable things that a coach in this kind of spot can have in those early, thin years is “proof of concept.” A marquee win, a big recruiting victory, something tangible to hold up as the example for what a coach wants his program to be. For Geoff Collins at Georgia Tech, knocking off North Carolina is partial proof of concept, though winning a major recruiting battle at some point would be an even better one. For Dino Babers at Syracuse, a 10-win season in 2018 was about as great an example as a coach can ask for.
Leipold’s concept is that he can build a fundamentally sound, run-first program around smart game-planning and development, even with a talent deficit in the Big 12. He did it at Buffalo and wants to apply it here. On Oct. 23, he got proof as strong as he could hope for this early in his tenure, in a 35-23 loss to Oklahoma.
First, the elephant in the room.
Loss.
Yes, Kansas lost. It did so in heartbreaking fashion, blowing a 10-point halftime lead and struggling to get off the field late in the game, surrendering 21 points in the final frame and missing out on a chance to upset the nation’s No. 4 team.
In that loss, though, we have a compelling argument for Leipold’s assessment of the Big 12 – especially the new, post-Oklahoma and Texas Big 12 – being correct. Kansas can win with a talent disadvantage, and it can out-scheme opponents without reverting to the same offense that every other team in America is running. It wants to create a numbers advantage in a variety of ways, making things easier on its offensive line, and hold onto the football for as long as possible. Kansas might not have hired Jeff Monken, but you could be fooled that he was the one running the show on Saturday, because it’s an identical ideology to the one the academies deploy, and it works there too.
To start, I would hope that I’ve established on here by now that there’s no better way to create numbers in the rushing attack than by utilizing your quarterback. Kansas does it here with a designed short-yardage keeper, running QB power from 11 personnel with twin receivers, the halfback, the tight end and the design to the field.
The blocking assignments are standard fare. The in-line tight end is blocking down with leverage on the playside defensive end. In doing so, he’s springing the right tackle on a quick little pull, freeing him up to take on a second-level player. If I’m being honest, I’d probably prefer that he blocks the backside linebacker here and leaves the frontside assignment to the lead blocking halfback, but I understand that that’s a little counterintuitive, because a big man on the most crucial block is a bit more attractive than the halfback.
However, if he picks up that backside linebacker here and the halfback takes the lead, I think Bean can sustain his momentum much better and turn this into a 10-yard gain, at least.
Regardless, the rest of the offensive line is looking to allow for penetration into the backfield, to put those defensive linemen behind the play. You can’t overdo it and risk your quarterback being caught from behind, but they do a nice job here. The last piece is the backside tackle, who would like to pick up a late-arriving linebacker. He’s not fast enough to do it here, but the idea is there.
Later on this same drive, Kansas again involves Bean as a runner, forcing Oklahoma to account for 10 potential blockers, rather than the nine in a standard rushing attack. This is just a zone read, with the slicing tight end serving as either a lead blocker for the quarterback if the isolated defensive end bites in on the handoff, or a crack blocker if that end holds steady. He bites in, Bean keeps the ball and follows his tight end to a big gain, with help from some strong receiver blocking.
A drive later, we get a similar look, this time with a pair of tight ends. The read is the same, Bean just has a second tight end to follow here. Because Kansas runs this from the pistol, it could isolate either defensive end and slice from either side, meaning that Oklahoma is forced to respect both halves of the field – which is especially nice with the ball on the hash like this. Earlier, Kansas runs this to the field. Now, it goes into the boundary, and Oklahoma is again unable to corral Bean before he has first down yardage.
Just before this on the same drive, Kansas flexed the other option here, in case of a holding end. The defender setting the edge is so aggressive here that the slicing tight end is able to slice inside his hip, getting to the edge to lead the halfback as he would the quarterback. The playside tackle (freed up by leaving that end unblocked for the read) picks up a fantastic second-level block, as do both receivers, helping to set the stage for a big Devin Neal run.
For 30 brilliant minutes, Kansas ran all over the Oklahoma defense. It used play action to pick up crucial third downs and ground out yards and minutes by executing simple designs as well as they could. It was un-Kansas-like. No flash, no real smoke and mirrors, nothing pieced together at the last minute that isn’t built to last. Kansas went out there, played smart football, and beat the hell out of the No. 4 team in the country for an entire half. Its lack of depth killed it in the second half, as did Oklahoma’s adjustments to limit the option, but this is the idea here for Leipold. With a deeper team and a better understanding of the scheme – as well as handpicked skill and line talent that better fits the scheme down the road – he thinks that he can do this consistently against better teams. Out-scheme, and out-execute.
For a program that has so often tried to build on flash rather than substance in the last 15 years or so, just being good at the basics is so obvious a starting point that it’s difficult to imagine how no one else thought of it before now. But that’s the fun part about being on the right track – Kansas doesn't need to think in hindsight anymore. It got its guy. He just proved it.