With new faces galore, KU Jayhawks football team takes field for practice in pads
After a later starting date than usual, the Kansas Jayhawks football team held its first spring practice in pads on Thursday.
KU had two practices without pads in the days leading up to Thursday’s session with the added equipment. And it was readily apparent that a few things have changed.
Head coach Lance Leipold’s roster, for instance, includes numerous new faces.
“I’ve been overall very pleased with our eight weeks of winter conditioning, weight room, conditioning-wise, what we are able to do and meet with our players and install (plays),” Leipold said. “As we have as many new players as we have, there’s a lot to kind of orient them into and get them on how we do things. All that to me, has gone very smoothly, probably better than even anticipated.
“I like where we are at. This is a later start for us in spring ball. It gave us a full eight weeks in the weight room. And I think we’ve seen some great dividends off that and changes in body composition, in strength and a lot of different things there.”
To Leipold’s point, this KU squad looks to be a departure from the Jayhawks’ 2025 squad, which finished a disappointing 5-7. The program has brought in 31 new transfers while losing 25 via the transfer portal. KU also has 12 early enrollees from its high school recruiting class.
“I think there are some positions we are going to have a little more depth.” Leipold said. “What I hope that translates to is that depth when we rotate more during the game. …Sometimes analyzing, critiquing fourth quarter losses – are guys on the field way too much? What are we doing. How do we practice? Everything is there.”
Leipold went in-depth about what he feels is different from last season’s team, so far.
“I’m looking forward to the competition in the linebacker spots, I think we have some really talented (players) and depth at the safety position,” he said. “I like the new additions up front, which is already a rotational position. I think those things are going to help us there. Offensively, I like some of the size we’ve added in the offensive line. I think we’ve got some talented running backs that are going to give us different styles of play.
“I like the wide receivers… I think all those pieces are there as we continue to put the pieces together.”
Kansas has not only a fair share of roster changes but also a number of coaching changes this offseason. Joe Dineen is now the defensive ends coach, while Taiwo Onatolu coaches solely the special teams.
Perhaps the biggest change is the addition of Andy Kotelnicki. The long-time assistant under Leipold rejoined the KU staff this offseason after a stint at Penn State.
Kotelnicki is now the Jayhawks’ associate head coach and also runs KU’s offense.
Leipold said the re-addition of Kotelnicki has been seamless. He’s already had a big impact, the coach said, including in some simplification of the Jayhawks’ offensive terminology.
“He’s been instrumental in some thoughts on some of the things that we’ve made slight changes,” Leipold said. “Really, we’ve kind of evolved ourselves into — I know you guys don’t get to see a lot of it, but we used to (run two huddles) and rapid-fire plays at the defense.
“Now with the staffing models the way they are, we can go two separate groups and some of that kind of slows down a little bit of the chaos at times, but we’re still getting a (lot) of reps, so that’s been good.”
