KU football coach Lance Leipold incensed over ‘really bad hit’ on QB Jalon Daniels
Kansas football coach Lance Leipold erupted in anger on the sidelines after failing to see a flag thrown on Texas linebacker Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey early in the second quarter of KU’s 55-14 loss to the Longhorns on Saturday at Booth Memorial Stadium.
Tucker-Dorsey had leveled KU junior quarterback Jalon Daniels with a high, illegal hit to Daniels’ head and right-shoulder area, a hit delivered after Daniels had released the football.
“There’s no question that thing (flag) should have come out sooner than it did, in my estimation,” Leipold said. “I watch that stuff pretty close. I thought it was a really bad hit, OK? And as bad a hit as I’ve seen in my time here or maybe as a head coach at going up at someone’s head. That’s my opinion. It doesn’t mean I’m always right, but yeah I don’t know why it took so long to review it.”
The refs, perhaps after seeing Leipold’s reaction, did indeed review the hit. Tucker-Dorsey was thrown out of the game.
Daniels — who had missed the last 4 1/2 games because of a shoulder injury — said he was happy to see that Leipold made sure justice was served.
“It means everything. I love that guy,” Daniels said after completing 17 of 26 passes for 230 yards and TD passes to Torry Locklin (14 yards) and Luke Grimm (12). Daniels scrambled two times for 12 yards in the second half.
“To see that he’s out there, to be as furious as he was about that call means everything to me. It means he cares about me,” Daniels added. “It’s more than football. In football you are going to take some hits. You are going to take some licks. You have to take those in and keep going.”
Daniels’ shoulder was able to withstand contact on that hit. He had no concussion-like symptoms.
“It just made me furious, honestly,” Daniels said. “You saw I’d thrown the ball already. The ball came out of my hands. It was more so like, ‘OK, I see what they are trying to do,’ Being a quarterback, everybody is going to try to hit you. He probably tried to get one in, which he did. I felt it definitely.”
Daniels said after he got off the ground, “one of their D linemen came up to me. He was saying something, like he was smiling at me. I smiled back at him. If you kill ‘em with kindness they don’t know what to do. It’s like, ‘Why are you smiling? I just hit you.’’’
Leipold said Daniels starting over Jason Bean — who’d started the last four games (one win, three losses) — was a game-time decision.
“We are at a point where Jalon practiced the most he ever had. If he came out of warmups feeling well he was going to start,” Leipold said after his Jayhawks fell to 6-5 overall and 3-5 in the Big 12. Texas improved to 7-4, 5-3.
“Jason did not practice much the first 2 1/2 days of the week,” Leipold added of Bean, who took hard hits to the midsection late in each of the last two games.
“Jason practiced more as we went along, but again, we feel that repetitions are important for him. I don’t know if that would have been in the best position (starting Bean). Jalon was able to go and wasn’t out for the year,” Leipold stated.
Leipold possibly was referring to media reports from several weeks ago that indicated Daniels would not return from a shoulder injury sustained in the TCU game.
“There was a little rust,” Leipold assessed. “You could see that in some of his throws. All in all, he got more comfortable. He didn’t want to come out (in fourth quarter with 8 1/2 minutes left, when he exited for Bean). He wanted to keep working through some things. He knows he needs some more live play (heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale at Kansas State). We’ll have to see how he feels early in the week and take it from there.”
Daniels, a 6-foot-0 junior from Lawndale, California, says he’s healthy.
“I’ve been felling really good, leaving everything to the trainers and coaches hands. It’s been a great week of practice,” Daniels said. “I was going to warm up and leave the decision to coach Leipold.”
Daniels added that he was “able to go out there and make some throws I haven’t made in a while. There were some opportunities I had out there maybe to run the ball. I felt I had the opportunity to make a pass in certain windows there.”
Daniels said just to make it back from injury this season is a huge deal.
“To be able to get back on the football field with those 11 guys is everything,” Daniels said. “To see all the work they’ve been putting in this entire season especially when I’ve been out, … to be able to come back in and work with those guys means everything.”
Scott Chasen of The Star contributed to this report
This story was originally published November 19, 2022 at 8:27 PM.
