Leipold, who is one season into his tenure as the Jayhawks’ coach but is overseeing his first spring workouts, let the players know their performance had been unacceptable. He told them they were going to start the session over — and that meant the conditioning and warmup drills, too.

And so they did, going through stretches, albeit in an abbreviated manner, before breaking into smaller groups by position once again.

As Leipold and his coaching staff continue to talk about instituting a culture of accountability, competition and productivity, Tuesday served as a reminder that there can be potholes on the road to success.

That’s what the spring is about.

“We have standards, and we want to be unrelenting in those standards,” defensive coordinator Brian Borland said afterward. “Those things really hadn’t been a problem and hadn’t been a problem up until that point, but obviously, there was enough of that where Coach just didn’t want to let it go.

“We addressed it and started again and moved forward and I thought guys responded pretty good. All in all, it probably was a benefit hopefully in the long run.”

In nine days, the Jayhawks have already completed one-third of their 15 spring practices, which are spread over six weeks. They’ll convene again Thursday morning for on-field workouts, go on hiatus for the university’s spring break, then return on March 22 for three practices a week leading up to the annual spring game on April 9.

Part of the spring practice window is about allowing players to get the repetitions necessary to build toward a productive season. As offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki explained last week — the program’s media calendar has one coach speaking after each practice — they’re also about giving players the “conceptual understanding” of why things are done a certain way.

And on Tuesday, that understanding reinforced expectations.

“That’s just the standard that we have,” said linebacker Rich Miller, who started eight games as a junior last season. “We know that everything has to be almost perfect, but if it isn’t perfect, we have to do it at 100 mph. So, we weren’t doing everything at 100 mph and that’s the standard, so it was good we had the restart. Everybody had to get their minds right, so that helped and we finished well.”

The Jayhawks finished 2-10 in the fall, their 12th consecutive season with three or fewer wins. Leipold is their fifth full-time head coach in that span; like several of the others, he has brought a history of winning to Lawrence.

But the challenge for Leipold and his assistants, several of whom, like Borland, have been with him since he was winning Division III national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater, is to get his players to buy into their vision for success.

Many have said they have, and the end of last season is often their proof. The Jayhawks won an overtime thriller at Texas, then lost to TCU and West Virginia, but were much more competitive in those games than they had been in many of their first nine.

Leipold said last week that one of the goals he had set for the spring was to establish a “culture of competing daily and getting better each and every day” through responsibility and effort.

“It’s really just fine-tuning the small things that we already are doing,” Leipold said. “Just making sure they’re perfect, really, and just continuing to try to grow at those things and continuing to try to compete with ourselves individually.”

Safety Kenny Logan Jr., considered one of the team leaders, has developed a strong bond with Leipold in their first year together. After last season ended, Logan made it clear to his teammates that he wasn’t going to transfer — a popular option for disgruntled players now that the NCAA has taken steps in recent years to facilitate that process — because he wanted to be part of Kansas’ turnaround under Leipold.

Logan said last week he wanted to be more active in developing some of his younger teammates, including three other safeties who played significant snaps last season as freshmen.

One of them, O.J. Burroughs, said he did just that on Saturday.

“I messed up in a drill and he pulled me aside, like, ‘We do this drill all the time,'” Burroughs said. “He just told me to make it better the next rep. Things like that keep you motivated, keep you going, just knowing that he cares about the little things and just wants everybody to do great.”

That was, widely, the message relayed to the Jayhawks after the pause on Tuesday morning. And, Miller said, it was received.

“You learn from your mistakes,” Miller said. “Those were things that are needed. We learned from our mistakes and I promise you, I don’t think it’s going to happen again. Everybody’s going to come out on top of their game and every single day set the standard.”