If you walk into the Kansas football locker room and ask holdovers from the 2021 team that had a 2-10 record if anything has changed about coach Lance Leipold’s message and demeanor — the answer is a resounding no.
Leipold is still preaching and instilling the same culture that helped KU improve from 2-10 in Year 1 to 6-7 in Year 2 and 9-4 last season.
One thing that has changed, however, has been the external expectations. For the first time since 2008, the Jayhawks are ranked in both major preseason college football polls.
This team’s goal is to win a Big 12 championship. Leipold talked about it after KU’s win against UNLV in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl last December. But there are steps that must be taken to get there.
“My goal is still that we are better today than we were yesterday, and then the wins and the other things will take care of themselves,” Leipold said. “To win a Big 12 championship, that’s really a game that’s not even on the schedule yet, that you haven’t earned it. … I always try to stay away from that.
“Do we have the ability now that we’ve shown that we can line up and do those things? Yes. ... We’ve got to go back and play and prove it, because if not, then we will be disappointed. That’s the nice thing of having this many seniors because I do think they understand it.”
Wide receiver Luke Grimm, one of those seniors, told The Star that Leipold has emphasized “little things get you beat” since the start of his tenure.
Those little things include being late to meetings, missing weigh-ins or even failing hydration tests.
“In our first year here, there was a direct correlation between when we had our best games — we might not have won them, but our best games were weeks that we had no guys on that list,” Grimm said. “Our worst games ... we had people late, people missing stuff. It’s the same thing now.
“That’s the biggest thing — if we keep the little things in good order and the right order, then the big things will fall into place.”
Grimm said nearly half the team was on the list — missing those little details — in Leipold’s first year. Nowadays, the team is mad if even one person makes it.
Grimm also said the players from 2021 do their best to emphasize how “not fun the bad times were” to younger teammates.
“That’s the biggest thing we want the young guys to understand: There are five plays in a game that can take you from 9-3 to 3-9 and you never know which they are,” Grimm said.
Offensive lineman Kobe Baynes joined the team for the 2022 season.
He told The Star that Leipold has done a great job keeping the team focused and “not looking at the rankings, the AP polls and all the hoopla that comes with it.”
Baynes said the team’s goal is clear: win a Big 12 championship. He feels this squad is even better than last season’s team that won nine games, and that one of the most significant differences is the defense. After ranking dead last in the Big 12 in points and yards allowed in 2022, the Jayhawks took a big step forward in 2023.
That same defense allowed 25.8 points and 377.6 yards per game last season. Baynes believes it could take another leap this year.
“I feel like, you know, coming here almost two years ago and to see (it) now, it’s kind of night and day the way the defense is,” Baynes said. “I can see that they are not thinking; they are going. I think last year, they hesitated a little bit. Now, guys know where they need to be.”
If it all comes together, that could mean the Jayhawks have a chance to compete on college football’s biggest stage. This year, a Big 12 championship almost certainly would equal a spot in the revamped 12-team College Football Playoff.
Running back and Lawrence-native Devin Neal believes the Jayhawks could very well make it to that point.
“Competing for a natty, man, I just think we have all the talent in the world to do that,” Neal said. “We have all the experience in the world to do that. Now it just comes down to us executing and doing what we were supposed to do.”
The stars could be aligned for a run in 2024 .
Although Leipold is stressing daily improvement, it’s important to remember that the Jayhawks have nearly 30 players graduating this school year.
That fact isn’t lost on Baynes.
“I think this era wants to go out with a bang,” Baynes said. “I think that the guys that have been here — I wasn’t here, but the guys going through Les Miles and then they get the introduction to Lance Leipold, really raising the floor of this place. I look behind us. When I got here, this wasn’t all here. It’s crazy to see what 2-3 years can do in changing the culture.
“I’m really happy for those guys, but I also want to send them out for the bang.”
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