Notebook: KU experienced both CMP and Arrowhead in season’s first week

By Henry Greenstein     Aug 29, 2024

article image Nick Krug
Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels (6) warms up before kickoff against Lindenwood on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024 at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas.

Kansas City, Kan. — The Jayhawks may have made their season debut at Children’s Mercy Park on Thursday, but the week of practice leading up to their victory over Lindenwood also gave them a glimpse of their next temporary home.

Kansas practiced at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Chiefs, on Saturday, much as it had gotten a preliminary look at Children’s Mercy Park on Aug. 2. The Jayhawks don’t play at Arrowhead until their matchup with TCU on Sept. 28 but relished the chance to get acclimated all the same.

“It’s really more of a mental thing for the players,” defensive end Jereme Robinson said. “You just get to envision yourself running out on the field with nobody there.”

Added quarterback Jalon Daniels: “I felt like I was an NFL quarterback out there being able to make a lot of throws on an NFL field. It was a surreal moment for me. It was my first time being able to play football on an NFL field.”

On a more technical level, the players got accustomed to the sort of unique quirks that players only really get to know in their home stadiums. Wide receiver Lawrence Arnold discovered one going up for a catch on the first team play of Saturday’s practice.

“The field is not even,” he said. “It’s not level.”

The right side of the field, Arnold explained, “slants down a little bit,” meaning Arnold will know to wait longer for the ball than an opposing defensive back. It’s the opposite on the left side.

“So certain areas of the field, trying to track the ball,” he said, “it works in our favor, since we’re practicing there a lot.”

The Jayhawks have one more home game at Children’s Mercy Park, against UNLV on Sept. 13, and then after TCU will host games at Arrowhead versus Houston (Oct. 12), Iowa State (Nov. 9) and Colorado (Nov. 23).

Career overlap

Lance Leipold has been around college football long enough, and at a sufficient number of different levels of play, that he has connections with quite a few of the coaches whose teams the Jayhawks play against. Next week, for example, KU will take on Illinois under Bret Bielema, who overlapped with Leipold when both were at Wisconsin schools.

Lindenwood coach Jed Stugart is, predictably, also well acquainted with Leipold. They were assistants on opposite sides of the ball in the NCAA Division II North Central Conference when Stugart was at Northern Colorado and Leipold was at Omaha.

“Really proud of what Lance has done in his career,” Stugart said, per a Big South-OVC video, “and what he’s doing is amazing at Kansas.

Stugart expressed great admiration for how far KU has come since the teams scheduled the matchup two years ago: “I was hoping he’d wait about three or four more years before he got the program to where it’s out now, but I’m so proud of him and what he’s done.”

The feeling is mutual. Leipold said that Stugart’s task of shepherding a team from one level to the next “would be something that is pretty fun and challenging.” And he added that Lindenwood’s offseason football camp is organized as well as any in the country.

“And if that’s the direction, and I know it is, from the head coach down, you know that’s the way the program’s going to be run,” Leipold said.

Local ties

Based fairly close by in St. Charles, Missouri, Lindenwood recruits a fair number of players from Kansas who had a chance to revisit their home state. The roster for Thursday’s game included linebackers Legend Robinson (from Hoisington and Hutchinson Community College) and Ethan Stuhlsatz (from Wichita and Butler Community College).

Lansing native Reece Thomas actually played at KU as a walk-on before transferring to Lindenwood in the offseason. He had four early targets as part of Thursday night’s matchup.

Cole Watson, however, is certainly the most directly acquainted with Lawrence. The tight end, who had one catch for 26 yards in his freshman year last season, is a former two-sport athlete at LHS.

This and that

Lindenwood played its first-ever game against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent. The Lions had moved up from Division II to Division I in 2022, just 11 years removed from their first NCAA season after previously participating in the NAIA.

Former KU head coach David Beaty was a football player at Lindenwood before beginning his coaching career in the high school ranks in Texas.

KU will host Lindenwood again on Sept. 2, 2028, presumably at the redone David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. That game is not a season opener, as it follows a date at Hawaii the prior week.

Avery Hamel contributed to this story.

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Written By Henry Greenstein

Henry is the sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, and serves as the KU beat writer while managing day-to-day sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (B.A., Linguistics) and Arizona State University (M.A., Sports Journalism). Though a native of Los Angeles, he has frequently been told he does not give off "California vibes," whatever that means.