Kansas coach Lance Leipold experienced a bit of a role reversal last weekend while the Jayhawks were on a bye.
He said on his “Hawk Talk” radio show Wednesday that he and his wife Kelly took his son Landon on a game-day visit to a college football program in South Dakota.
Landon, a receiver at Free State High, posted some pictures on X from his time at that school, Augustana University, and wrote that he “loved the culture up in Sioux Falls.”
“Actually get a chance to be a dad,” as Lance Leipold put it, adding that he and Kelly also got to see Landon play the previous night.
Those were two of many excursions that Leipold was able to fit in without a game on the schedule, as he and the staff balanced game prep and as he put it, the need “to get out, to be seen.” Ultimately, the bye week was big for KU’s recruiting, and not just because they earned the commitment of West Hills, California, offensive lineman David Abajian.
“We wanted to get to as many places as we could,” Leipold said Monday. “There’s some that based on certain schedules and other things happening, we could get to some Thursday night games, like I did. And then guys were at places on Friday, and guys were seeing games on Saturday as well …
“(General Manager) Rob Ianello, (Director of Player Personnel) Grant Murray and the rest of our recruiting staff put together a plan that utilizes our time efficiently, and I feel we were able to do that.”
Coaches went hither and yon on the recruiting trail, and Leipold and defensive pass game coordinator Jordan Peterson made it out to Goodyear, Arizona, and specifically Desert Edge High School, trips that were memorialized in photos on Scorpions co-head coach Marcus Carter’s X account.
Peterson is the architect of what has become a pipeline for KU, as current Desert Edge seniors Aundre Gibson, Jonathan Kamara and Deshawn Warner are all slated to join the Jayhawks’ defense next season. Warner has recently received offers from Michigan and Ohio State but thus far remained committed to the Jayhawks. KU is also recruiting Desert Edge junior cornerback Jamar Beal-Goines and will undoubtedly return to the well going forward if its high-profile visits are any indication.
In addition, Peterson visited Horizon High School in nearby Scottsdale, which is home to 2024 commit Carter Lavrusky, as well as Paetow High School in Katy, Texas, according to social media posts from those school’s coaches. Leipold also mentioned Oklahoma City as a destination for the staff.
On and off the field
Even before Saturday — nine days earlier, in fact — the Sooners beat the Jayhawks in a battle off the field when OU secured the commitment of four-star linebacker Michael Boganowski, the top player in the state of Kansas for the class of 2024 and a longtime target of Lance Leipold’s staff. Boganowski, from Junction City, had always seemed like a long shot to pick KU with both OU and nearby Kansas State in the picture (plus distant Florida State), but the opacity of his recruitment process and its lengthy duration made it seem like the Jayhawks were never truly out of the picture.
KU angled for Boganowski with a couple of memorable maneuvers. The existing 2024 class engineered an impromptu social media campaign with a barrage of tweets at Boganowski on July 5. The following month, linebackers coach Chris Simpson digressed from his praise of freshman linebacker Logan Brantley at fall camp and made an oblique reference to recruiting: “If any of you guys know of any 6-foot-2, 210- to 215-pound linebackers, maybe in the area, that are interested in Kansas, we’d love to have them … I think there’s one or two that I’d be interested in.”
In the end, though, it was Boomer Sooner for Boganowski. The sense is that OU plans to use him as more of a safety — for one thing, he was recruited by safeties coach Brandon Hall — or at least what it calls the “cheetah” position in Brent Venables’ defense, a linebacker/safety hybrid analogous to the Hawk in Brian Borland’s KU scheme.
Venables continued his strong record of recruiting in Kansas after securing the services of Hays native and fellow linebacker Jaren Kanak, another top recruit, years ago.
KU did catch one big break against OU on the recruiting trail back in July when 2024 commit offensive lineman Harrison Utley, a Norman, Oklahoma, native whose mother is an associate athletic director in finance for the Sooners, turned down an offer from his hometown school to reaffirm his commitment to KU.
Weather woes
Saturday’s game endured a weather delay of approximately 58 minutes halfway through the second quarter, with OU driving to tie the game after falling behind 14-0 early. The Sooners continued their momentum and scored two additional touchdowns in short order after returning from the unexpected break at 1:02 p.m. Central Time.
The stoppage diminished the size of the capacity crowd at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, somewhat lessening the impact of the venue’s second sellout of the season.
The Jayhawks’ last lightning delays prior to Saturday came on Sept. 17, 2022 at Houston (69 minutes) and Oct. 5, 2019 at home against Oklahoma (30 minutes prior to kickoff).
This and that
Former Kansas wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Emmett Jones, who now serves the same role at Oklahoma, has been around the Big 12 — he spent time at Texas Tech before and after his KU stint. But Saturday marked his first return to Lawrence since the conclusion of his tenure at KU. Jones coached many of the Jayhawks’ current receivers, including Lawrence Arnold, Luke Grimm and Quentin Skinner, and he also served as the team’s interim head coach between the firing of Les Miles and hiring of Lance Leipold.
Also returning to Lawrence for the first time since that era was defensive tackle Da’Jon Terry, who has played at Tennessee and now Oklahoma since leaving KU.
Henry Greenstein/Journal-World
