Kansas ‘Didn’t Know How to Win’ Before Lance Leipold
A little over a week ago, Kansas football made Lance Leipold one of the highest-paid coaches in college football with a contract valued at over $7 million per year.
A half-decade or so ago that would’ve been the punchline in a college football sickos joke. Now, it’s a reality.
Kansas spent over a decade as the lovable loser of college football, dropping 99 games–the most on any FBS program in the country–in the ten seasons that preceded Leipold’s arrival.
Things couldn’t be more different now, though, as KU is coming off a 9-4 season and has all kinds of momentum heading into 2024. Hell, the Jayhawks have the third-best odds to win a Big 12 Championship next season. Who could’ve seen that coming?
Not anyone in Lawrence before Leipold got there, that’s for sure. In a recent story from The Athletic about Kansas’ head coaches’ rise to prominence, Max Olsen dove into some of the finer details about what KU looked like when Leipold showed up, and it wasn’t pretty. Kansas Director of Sports Performance Matt Gildersleeve tried to pinpoint why the Jayhawks had become a perennial loser.
“Failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure,” Gildersleeve said. “Something bad is gonna happen. Bad things happen in this stadium. Here we go again.”
If all a team has ever done is lost, how can they even begin to work on what it takes to win? It seems like a simple question, but it’s not a solution that many find with regularity. However, Lance Leipold knew what it took to win, and so did the players who followed him from Buffalo, New York, to Lawrence, Kansas.
Rich Miller, one of six players to follow Leipold and a starting linebacker for the Jayhawks, recalled what it was like when he showed up on campus ahead of the 2021 season.
“They didn’t know how to win,” Miller said. “They didn’t know what it felt like to win. It was weird because they didn’t know what they needed to work on or what they needed to be to win.”
That season, despite a 2-10 record, KU made history by beating Texas in Austin for the first time ever. It was also the Jayhawks’ first Big 12 win since October 26, 2019.
While many folks couldn’t see it then, that night foreshadowed much of the success that Kansas would come to find under Leipold in the seasons that followed.
“I’m so proud of our guys,” Leipold said. “They have been through so much. They battled, they kept believing in what we’re doing. We let the lead slip away, but we talked about trying to finish and playing hard for 60 minutes. We did it and then some. I’m so proud of them, and hopefully, it’s something we’re going to build on.”
They did build on it, and in 2022, the Jayhawks became the darlings of college football with a 5-0 start, a spot in the Top 25, and a visit from College Gameday. Miller recalls what it was like witnessing Kansas players get their first taste of success.
“Some people on our team were surprised,” Miller said. “Not gonna lie, they were like, ‘Wow, we’re doing it.’”
It didn’t just happen overnight, though, as learning to win takes time. It’s a process.
“Early on, the coaches after the game say, ‘Oh, you guys are doing such a great job, just keep going, you guys are doing the right things.’ They almost pat you on the back,” Miller said. “The next year, they beat you but you lose by a little. Now, when you walk across the field, they’re kinda looking at you sideways like, These guys might be a problem. And then the next year, now maybe you win by a little. Now they’re pissed. Now they’re like, ‘We just lost to Kansas.’ And then you become the team to beat.
“I’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean? Lose by a lot, lose by a little, win by a little, hopefully win by a lot. If we can just keep it day by day — it’s not easy, it never is — that’s the process.”
After winning national championships at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater and transforming a lowly Buffalo program into a winner in the MAC, Leipold has now turned Kansas into a winner.
In 2024, with a new contract, a new stadium, and a new feeling around the program, Leipold can now help the Jayhawks go from winning to winning big.
“We are incredibly proud of what our football program has accomplished over the first three seasons in Lawrence, and look forward to the continued challenge of bringing a consistent winner and championship home to the University of Kansas,” Leipold said after signing his new contract. “With the alignment that exists between Chancellor Girod, Travis Goff and Kansas Football, it gives us great confidence in the future of the Jayhawk program, and we are thankful and humbled by the support of the University and Kansas Jayhawk fans everywhere.”
