Lance Leipold has ‘mixed emotions’ following another missed bowl

Lance Leipold reached a bowl game in his second and third seasons in 2022 and 2023. Friday’s loss to Utah marked the second consecutive season where Kansas fell short of a bowl, finishing 5-7 in both instances.

After the game, Leipold said he had mixed emotions about where the program is at. Leipold was proud of his team’s effort and the future trajectory of the program.

‘Mixed emotions’ about expectations of Kansas football

After missing a bowl game for the second straight season, Leipold acknowledged he had fallen short of expectations. However, he also noted that having expectations in the first place is a marker of progression in his time at Kansas.

“How do I look at it? With mixed emotions, mixed in the fact that of where we’ve come as a program, that in a very short period of time [making a bowl] has now become the expectation,” Leipold said. “And how we have to continue to look at every aspect of our program in this era of roster building and things like that and how we’re going to continue to do that and to give ourselves the best opportunities possible. But as far as two, five and seven years complaining probably about expectations, we’ve underachieved, I guess by most people’s standards.”

Leading up to the Utah game, Daniel Hishaw said that he wasn’t mad about people being frustrated about the Jayhawks’ underachievements in the past two years. Leipold echoed that sentiment on Friday, saying that’s what he wants to see out of his players.

“I want our players to be confident enough that we should be able to be a team now playing bowl games,” Leipold said. “That’s what we want them to be. We want them to aspire to be. And that’s what we have to keep working to obtain.”

With where Kansas sits as a program, the margin of error is small. The Jayhawks have been on the wrong side of close games in the past two seasons. Leipold said Kansas has to work to put itself above the “bunch” in a college football world full of parity.

“Some of the things that we’re all frustrated about, that you have to ask about, are being asked because it’s this close,” Leipold said. “It’s the new world of college football where it’s going to be more bunched up, I think, is what you’re going to see. And, and for us to continue to try to put ourselves in that above line, we got to continue to work and get better. And it starts at the top.”

Leipold proud of Jayhawks’ effort against Utah, enjoyed coaching this group

Leipold challenged his players, and specifically his seniors, throughout game prep to play their best football in the last game of the season. While Kansas didn’t come away with a win, he thought his seniors left it all out on the table.

“As we had those 33 seniors for it, hopefully it wasn’t going to be our last game, but if it was going to be our last game here, and I said if you turn the film on next week or if you turn it on 20 years from now, when you’re going to show it, show your kids or your grandkids or whatever, it’s going to be later in life, hopefully they’re going to say that you played the game hard,” Leipold said. “And we talked a lot about that and I think they really understood that and I think they went about it that way.”

Kansas had a roster made up of a lot of transfer talent in the 2025 season. From spring football to the end of the season, Leipold and others have emphasized how quickly a group of a lot of newcomers gelled together.

“It’s been a really fun group to coach; It’s a good group of guys,” Leipold said. “In this Portal era now, as we’ve talked many times, when you integrate as many older players as what happens and what we did, to me, you’re worrying about how it’s going to flow and is everybody going to get on the same page sooner as far as expectations of the program and how we do things and why we do things. And I’ve told this group, it’s gone a lot better than I ever imagined in that regard.”

Kansas will look at things holistically for areas to improve

Leipold has taken accountability after each of the Jayhawks’ last two losses. He emphasized needing to improve as a head coach and doing a better job finishing games.

“I would say I have to do a better job as a head coach,” Leipold said. “I think we have to [be] better in, you know, closing out football games… again, as we look and, you know, continually looking at recruiting and how we’re putting the roster together and how we go about that and to make sure that we do what fits, you know, what we’re looking to do a schematically, but also give us best chance to be successful in the Big 12.”

After the Iowa State game, Leipold mentioned a top-down look at everything in the program, including the coaching staff. He said Kansas is approaching a dead period, but will look at “all things.”

“Now that our season is over, we’ll continue to take that, you know, try to get to most of that next week and get moving,” Leipold said. “As far as we’re in a dead period recruiting, we have some things, obviously signing days coming up, but obviously we can start taking a deep dive into that as quickly as we can and look at all things.”