Ames, Iowa — They didn’t overlap, but Iowa State coach Matt Campbell and Kansas coach Lance Leipold each played key roles in shaping one of the most prominent — and most completely organic — rivalries in all of 21st-century college football.
They did it down in NCAA Division III.
Campbell was the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio, the first two years that the Purple Raiders faced Wisconsin-Whitewater in the Division III title game. At that time, the Warhawks were led by Bob Berezowitz in his 21st and 22nd seasons, but he retired after taking two championship losses to Mount Union and was replaced by an alumnus who had recently been working as an assistant head coach at Nebraska-Omaha. That was Leipold.
Campbell took a job at Bowling Green the next season. In his absence, Mount Union and Wisconsin-Whitewater met an additional seven times — yes, seven times — in the title game. Leipold won six of those matchups, while Larry Kehres won one (and another in 2012 when Whitewater didn’t make it to the championship).
Then Leipold — who was at that point already working with coordinators Brian Borland and Andy Kotelnicki, and had spent time with some of his other eventual KU assistants — moved up to the Division I level himself to take the head coaching job at Buffalo. Campbell was already in the same conference, the Mid-American, with Toledo, for a single year but then left for his current gig at Iowa State. They didn’t play each other that lone year, in 2015, but got to know each other later on in the Big 12 Conference.
“I have great respect for Matt and his journey,” Leipold said this week “… We have a lot of common people that we know and respect, and I think, yeah, the similarities of going there.”
Leipold said that Campbell also gave him “a lot of words of encouragement” when KU met Iowa State for the first time in Ames in 2021 and lost 59-7, a trip that Leipold has often described as a wake-up call about what the Jayhawks would need to do in order to compete in the Big 12.
“I’ll always remember that, appreciate that,” Leipold said.
Arnold’s shining moment
The mandate around the KU facilities leading up to the trip to Ames was for the Jayhawks to move on from their upset win over Oklahoma and focus on producing a second strong performance in a row. But wide receiver Lawrence Arnold, who found some space in the Sooners’ coverage for the 37-yard reception on fourth-and-6 that led to KU’s victory, was still happy to provide a vivid beat-by-beat recollection of that play for reporters on Wednesday.
The game was particularly special for Arnold because it was the first he had played since becoming a father. He said that while his infant son sleeps a lot, he stayed awake to watch the game back at home.
Out on the field, Arnold said he had noticed, after running similar routes throughout the game and making subtle changes, that it was altering the leverage of the defensive back he kept getting matched up against.
“So on the last drive, I was just thinking ‘All right, if I don’t run this route full speed, if I go slow to fast-paced on him, it’s going to make him open up and possibly get him to turn around,'” Arnold said. “And when I was running, I could kind of see his demeanor, his body language change as I sped up and slowed down so at the top of the route I gave him a hard speed stick, and it got him to open his hips up.”
Arnold said he knew from the defensive back’s angle that he was going to be able to find space by pivoting toward the sideline. He ultimately took the ball all the way to the 9-yard line and set up Devin Neal’s go-ahead touchdown with under a minute left.
He made an impact throughout Saturday’s game, too, with a leaping grab on fourth-and-10 to set up an opening-drive touchdown, then an 80-yard score to halt the Cyclones’ momentum midway through the fourth quarter.
Purdy good
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, the unlikely starter who rose to prominence last season playing in relief of Jimmy Garoppolo, was in attendance at Jack Trice Stadium Saturday during his team’s bye week. He was acknowledged and greeted enthusiastically by the sellout crowd during the first half.
Purdy played extensively in four seasons for the Cyclones, tossing 81 touchdowns and 33 interceptions before San Francisco selected him with the final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
This and that
Easton Dean, a tight end for the Cyclones, was a highly touted pro-style quarterback in the 2019 recruiting class coming out of Oswego, but ultimately picked ISU over Iowa, KU and Kansas State, according to his profile on ISU’s website. He later scored his first career touchdown in his home state against KU last season, but he was the only player on his team to find the end zone as the Jayhawks won that game 14-11.
Saturday’s matchup was ISU’s homecoming game. The Cyclones came in after beating Cincinnati and Baylor at those schools’ respective homecomings.