It may additionally had been 14 years since KansKansas Jayhawks as Jayhawks the Kansas football program sent a crew to a Kansas Jayhawks bowl recreation, however this is not precisely new territory for KU educate Lance Leipold.
During his Kansas Jayhawks six Kansas Jayhawks seasons at Buffalo, Leipold led the Bulls to bowl appearances in his very last three seasons, with wins in 2019 and 2020 and a loss in 2018.
Then there’s his postseason revel in at Wisconsin-Whitewater, wherein he led his groups to seven trips to the Division III national championship game, prevailing six of them.
So, yeah, the exhilaration Kansas Jayhawks around the program and campus and the network as an entire about the Jayhawks heading to this week’s Kansas Jayhawks Liberty Bowl — 4:30 p.m. kickoff Wednesday vs. Arkansas in Memphis on ESPN — is new. But Leipold and a terrific bite of his education personnel have been extra than geared up to guide this organization through the four weeks of prep work that has now been reduced to much less than 72 hours. Photo
Kansas soccer teach Lance Leipold does a brief interview with KU play-through-play announcer Brian Hanni, …
Photo courtesy of the AutoZone Liberty Bowl
After two complete weeks of recruiting for the coaches and developmental practices offering lots of KU’s youngest gamers who did no longer get hold of many reps this season, the Jayhawks (6-6) were centered almost totally on Arkansas for the past week.
Last Wednesday, at his signing day press conference, Leipold stated KU broke the latter levels of bowl prep “into 4-exercise segments, like we do all through the season.”
“Now it’s those wherein we actually type of hone in on it,” Leipold stated. “We’ve been Kansas Jayhawks introducing Arkansas and sport-deliberate thru that.”
One of the 2 segments ended ultimate Wednesday and the second one commenced remaining Thursday, with tour time and the Kansas Jayhawks Christmas holiday reducing into the second one session.
The Jayhawks arrived in Memphis on Sunday evening, kind of seventy two hours earlier than Wednesday’s kickoff.
It wasn’t a wholly new enjoy for all people on the team. KU’s modern-day roster, which has been up to date on-line to mirror the recent transfer portal departures, protected 17 gamers who, in one manner or every other already had skilled a bowl game in his profession.
That be counted, which makes up 15% of the Jayhawks’ roster, did not include any junior university postseason experience or that of Kansas Jayhawks players like beginning offensive lineman Dominic Puni, who has playoff experience at a decrease level.
It did, but, covered pretty some players who played a big function in getting Kansas returned to a bowl recreation with their sturdy play this season. That listing protected: Running again Kansas Jayhawks Ky Thomas, shielding lineman Eddie Wilson, offensive linemen Mike Novitsky and Michael Ford Jr., linebackers Rich Miller, Craig Young and Lorenzo McCaskill, cornerback Kalon Gervin, quarterback Jason Bean and edge rusher Lonnie Phelps Jr.
In an interview with reporters quickly after the Jayhawks’ arrival on the crew motel on Sunday night, linebacker Rich Miller illustrated his enjoy in bowl video games.
“When we have been on the aircraft, I advised every person, ‘All the practices are over; now the amusing begins,’” Miller stated. “This is what we worked for all season and now it’s time (for it) to pay off.”
Wednesday’s sport might be the primary inside the records of the KU application to be played on Dec. 28.
For a program that has regarded in just a dozen bowls all-time, that makes masses of experience. But it’s still outstanding because it underscores KU’s Kansas Jayhawks unfamiliarity with gambling games in late December.
The Jayhawks enter their first postseason sport in extra than a decade with an all-time record of 594-675-58, which include an eight-16 mark beneath Leipold, who’s 154-fifty five all-time as a head train.
KU is searching for to win its 7th recreation for the first time in a unmarried season due to the fact that 2008, while this system completed eight-5. KU is 6-6 all-time in its dozen bowl appearances, such as an 0-1 report at the Liberty Bowl. The Jayhawks are 2-zero all-time towards the Arkansas Razorbacks, but the colleges have not met at the gridiron when you consider that 1907.
The Jayhawks input this one with a sixty three-seventy one-10 all-time record towards teams from the Southeastern Conference.
It’s been some time because the Jayhawks matched up with a program from the powerhouse conference, no longer Kansas Jayhawks counting Missouri or Texas A&M;, of path, which have been both in the Big 12 the remaining time the Jayhawks played them.
KU’s remaining assembly with an SEC team got here all through Week 2 of the 1988 season, while the traveled to Auburn and lost fifty six-7.
Kansas has played a couple of video games against teams from the 4 other Power 5 meetings seeing that that assembly with Auburn.
KU additionally played Auburn in the 1987 season, losing 49-zero at Auburn inside the season opener that year.
Prior to that, Kansas performed SEC faculty Vanderbilt in the course of the 1984 and 1985 seasons and SEC application Kentucky in the 1981 and 1982 seasons. The Jayhawks have been 2-1-1 in the ones 4 video games, with one win over each application and a 13-all tie at Kentucky in 1982.
KU quarterback Jalon Daniels, who lower back as the group’s starter after recovering from a shoulder damage that Kansas Jayhawks kept him out for several weeks at some point of the regular season, may additionally have generated the maximum character buzz most of the Jayhawks’ this season.
But multiple his teammates achieved matters that just a few people in all of university soccer did throughout the 2022 season.
Interestingly sufficient, Bean, Daniels’ again-up, turned into certainly one of simply five QBs in all of Power five to have back-to-back video games of 250-plus Kansas Jayhawks yards passing and 4 landing passes this season. Kansas Jayhawks He joined Heisman Trophy finalists Kansas Jayhawks Caleb Williams, who won the award, and C.J. Stroud, at the side of Will Rogers, of Mississippi State and Drake Maye, of North Carolina.
One of the fave objectives of each Bean and Daniels, junior tight end Mason Fairchild, additionally landed in one-of-a-kind business enterprise.
Fairchild become one in every of 5 tight results in all of university football to have a hundred-plus yards and or greater touchdowns within the equal game this season. That got here in a Kansas loss at Oklahoma on Oct. 15.