Craig Has The Scout - Kansas 2024
Coming Up
Who: Kansas Jayhawks
When: 6:00 pm – September 6th, 2024
Where: Home Sweet Home
How: FS1
Opponent Primer:
Head Coach: Lance Leipold. Leipold was a late hire the same cycle as Bielema, and has brought Kansas out of the abyss. He was a Division III national champion coach who jumped to Buffalo, and then to Kansas. Leipold kept a pretty consistent staff through all those moves but saw his long-time OC Andy Kotelnicki move on to Penn State. The book on Leipold is about to really be written; can he sustain his success through staff turnover.
Offensive Style: Standard Shotgun spread wide zone run scheme. Andy Kotelnicki moved his offense to Penn State in the off-season and was replaced by Jeff Grimes. Grimes was the OC of Baylor last year, and fired by Baylor before coming to Kansas. Kotelnicki was a slow paced Lane Kiffin, his offense was a hodge podge of plays designed to beat the opponent. Grimes runs a similar pace and is much more predictable in his scheme.
Defensive Style: 4-2 Cover 1 / Cover 3. Brian Borland was part of the staff that came to Kansas from Buffalo with Leipold. In the off-season they brought in a Co-DC with recent experience in the NFL and Iowa State. I expect the Jayhawks to change their back-end coverage scheme as the year progresses, but Lindenwood is not the opponent to unveil it. They ran a lot of single deep safety against the Lions.