The frustration — and hope — KU Jayhawks football can take from Coastal Carolina loss
There’s a good chance — at some point during Kansas’ 49-22 loss to Coastal Carolina on Friday — that KU head coach Lance Leipold looked across Brooks Stadium with a bit of envy.
But perhaps some hope as well.
Though Coastal Carolina is a Sun Belt team, in many ways, it’s a model of what Leipold likely envisions for his KU team in the future.
The Chanticleers don’t pull every 5-star recruit. They don’t overwhelm opponents with speed or intimidate with a proven brand name in the sport.
No, 17th-ranked Coastal Carolina has built up the boring way: by developing talent, then getting old and staying there.
The Chanticleers returned 19 of 22 starters heading into the season. They had 13 super-seniors who decided to come back.
KU couldn’t be further from that reality in Friday’s game. Leipold and his staff were hired late, meaning all the new schemes and systems had to be rushed into place in a little more than a month.
So let’s be blunt: KU has no chance, at this moment, to be like Coastal Carolina.
But maybe in a few years, it’ll be something of an example to strive toward.
“When you’re that experienced and you’re clicking, it’s just so many things they can dial up off the run game, and then complementary with the play-action off of it,” Leipold said, a few steps off Brooks Stadium’s teal turf. “And then they go into halftime and add a few more wrinkles. It makes it tough.”
KU’s defense couldn’t hold up. The Chanticleers threw for 245 yards and rushed for 215 more. They averaged 7.5 yards per play and went 8 for 9 on third downs. They also scored on 6 of their first 9 offensive drives before running out the clock on their 10th.
“As you can see, they’ve got an experienced football team that’s operating on pretty good cylinders there,” Leipold said. “It makes it tough.”
At this point, though, KU is at the stage of development where it needs to learn to crawl before it walks and to walk before it runs.
And if that’s the standard ... well, the Jayhawks didn’t fare too poorly, despite what the score might suggest.
KU — in the most general sense — was beaten more than it defeated itself. The Jayhawks didn’t turn the ball over for a second straight game. They averaged 6.5 yards per play of offense — their best mark since 2019.
On Friday, though, KU struggled to finish drives with points. The Jayhawks, as an example, were 0 for 5 on fourth-down conversions, meaning much of the offensive production went all for naught in the end.
“I’m just overall proud of this team, the way that we fought,” KU quarterback Jason Bean said. “We stayed in it the whole game. There were a couple mistakes, but nothing we cannot fix.”
And let’s be honest: Bean is more than enough reason to give KU fans hope about the immediate and long-term future.
It hasn’t been often in the last decade that the Jayhawks have run out a quarterback who flashes as potentially the best player on the field. That happened numerous times Friday, with Bean bursting for 34- and 46-yard touchdown runs that helped KU turn a 28-9 deficit into a 28-22 margin early in the third quarter.
“As y’all see, his speed is real. I don’t know what else to say about that,” KU receiver Kwamie Lassiter said with a smile. “Jason played good.”
Still, as Leipold knows, the margin of error remains so small if KU wants to compete, especially against a ranked team like Coastal Carolina on the road.
Even Bean’s heroics weren’t enough. Coastal Carolina answered with three touchdowns of its own, and a once-close game was suddenly not that.
“We’ve got to continue to work to get better, but at least what I see in their eyes in the locker room right now, they want to,” Leipold said. “They see those glimpses. Now they know we’ve got to get more consistent.”
The process continues next week, when KU — at 1-1 — hosts Baylor for the first game of what promises to be a daunting Big 12 schedule.
And though Leipold can’t wave pixie dust to give his guys experience like Coastal Carolina has ... he still can see signs that his Jayhawks might be getting incrementally closer to that, slowly but surely.
“I told them I was proud of them, because we’re getting better for 60 minutes,” Leipold said. “And we’re not going to compromise, but we’re not going to be satisfied with things either.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
