Lance Leipold describes the challenge of preparing for multiple quarterbacks vs. West Virginia

The quarterback position has been a question mark for the West Virginia Mountaineers all offseason. Now, after playing three quarterbacks against Pitt in the Backyard Brawl, it’s once again up in the air who an opposing defense is going to see. That’s presented a unique challenge for Kansas Jayhawks head coach Lance Leipold.

This week, Leipold addressed how that’s going to test the Kansas defense. In particular, he stressed the need for planning against multiple different tendencies and strengths.

“I think he said he might have played five in this game,” Lance Leipold said. “Or something, was maybe gonna do so. Again, the ability to — there’s film on different guys, you watch what they do. But, again, it’s still going to be, is there a package of plays for a guy and West Virginia did that the last couple times we played, even under coach [Neal] Brown where they had another quarterback and another package of plays.”

It was Nicco Marchiol who earned the starting job coming out of Fall Camp. However, head coach Rich Rodriguez would bench him in the Backyard Brawl, playing both Jaylen Henderson and Scotty Fox Jr. in his place. They would both struggle, though, and Rodriguez returned to Marchiol late in that game. That was when he sparked the offense and led the Mountaineers on a comeback win.

For the season, Marchiol is completing 71.8 percent of his passes for 594 yards and two touchdowns to an interception. He’s also rushed for 61 yards and another touchdown. Fox Jr has 64 passing yards and two interceptions on the season. Then, Henderson went 2-7 passing through three games for 12 yards.

“You try to get an idea what they — because we only have so much time to get stuff done in practice,” Leipold said. “So, you try to get an idea of identity of what they’re going to be with those certain quarterbacks. I think they played two on Saturday or three. Again, to kind of find out each one of them do, what throws they’re most comfortable making. Some of those will start to show tendencies.

For their part, Leipold and the Jayhawks have been solid against the pass defensively this season. Kansas is 61st nationally in passing defense, giving up 201 yards per game through the air. That’s also good for 11th in the Big 12.

Kansas and West Virginia are set to meet in Lawrence on Saturday, September 20th. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. EST.