As the first season of a new coaching era for the Kansas football program nears its conclusion, head coach Lance Leipold and his longtime coordinators envision brighter Novembers ahead for the Jayhawks.
There’s still time this month, KU’s coaches are quick to point out, to make this final stretch of the 2021 season more memorable than the bulk of September and October, which accounted for most of the team’s current eight-game losing streak. But the coaches also have the longterm in mind when it comes to what they hope to accomplish between now and the end of the final game, against West Virginia on Nov. 27.
Eventually, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki pointed out, the KU staff wants to have the type of program that gets to play and practice beyond the regular season finale.
“We’ve got to learn how to prepare and practice and play and execute in the month of November. We want to be at the point where we’re playing meaningful games in this month,” Kotelnicki said.
KU, of course, hasn’t played in a bowl game since 2008 (the Insight Bowl). The Jayhawks haven’t posted a winning record since then. In fact, they’ve won three or fewer games every year since 2009, when they finished 5-7 in Mark Mangino’s last season as head coach.
“We want to be in a situation where you understand that if you want to play in December and play well in December, you’ve got to learn how to go out and execute in November,” Kotelnicki said.
That big picture view might be difficult for fans and even players to consider, as the Jayhawks enter Saturday’s game at Texas (6:30 p.m., ESPNU) with a 1-8 record overall and an 0-6 mark in Big 12 play.
When asked during his weekly press conference Tuesday what needed to be accomplished this month, before the long offseason arrives, Leipold’s response began with a sentiment he often has mentioned since the team opened preseason camp in August.
“We’ll continue to progress,” Leipold said. “And I’ve said this to the point where we’re all tired of hearing it — there’s small strides being made, but yet they’re not strides that are showing up on a scoreboard.”
The Jayhawks are getting outscored approximately 45-11 in Big 12 games. But Leipold said the players show more gains than regression, overall, and continue to bring “really good energy” to practices late in the season.
Photo courtesy of Kansas Athletics“I’m really proud of the way they went about it, considering where it stands record wise,” Leipold said shortly after Tuesday’s practice, noting the defense made some changes to its format that “added some juice” to what the players were doing.
KU defensive coordinator Brian Borland said last week that he and other coaches sometimes feel like they’re always talking about the same things with their players, as they try to work toward turning around the program.
“It’s trying to find a new way of saying it, or a better way of saying it, but quite honestly, we’ve just got to keep improving,” Borland said.
“We’ve got to continue to build on the culture that we’re trying to establish, and how we want to work and how we want to go about doing things. And that involves the on-the-field things, the off-field things, the practice habits — all those kinds of things. And as we do that, then I feel like the performance on the field will also keep taking steps,” KU’s D.C. said.
During their last four years of their six-season run at Buffalo, Leipold, Borland and Kotelnicki saw a lot of success in Novembers. The Bulls went 3-0 in 2017, 2-2 in 2018, 3-1 in 2019 and 4-0 in 2020.
In their first year of a longterm rebuilding project at KU, Leipold said they often have different criteria for measuring accomplishments. Especially in the second halves of some of their blowout losses of late, the head coach said they’re not concerning themselves with the numbers on the scoreboard.
“We’re going to worry about how we play this down, this series, this quarter, this half, and then this game,” Leipold said of the process.
Offensively, Kotelnicki said the final weeks of the season involve both refocusing on fundamentals and thoroughly evaluating each position.
“What are the things that we know that we want to get better at to make us better not only this month, but in the future,” Kotelnicki said. “What kind of steps do we want to take? And try to be proactive in our development that way.”
KU’s O.C. didn’t want to give away any of the specifics of those positional evaluations, but said he also has preached to players about the importance of staying together and positive in their approach as a challenging season winds down.
“Because that’s how it’s going to continue to move forward,” Kotelnicki said of the offensive progress he’s seeking.
Borland painted a similar picture for the defense’s outlook.
“Really, we’re just game by game, week by week, let’s just focus on us and let’s focus on getting better, and learning how to compete better, so that sooner or later the wins kind of catch up to the culture a little bit,” Borland said. “That’s what we’re hoping for.”
Such expectations, Leipold said, haven’t changed since the current staff led the team through its first practice just more than three months ago.
“What I evaluate is our our energy, coachability — willing to be coached, wanting to be coached. How we go about our effort and strain and finish. All the things that we talked about in August are still true,” Leipold said.
