Kansas coach Lance Leipold has felt strongly since long before the season began about the quality of his team’s depth this year, and the Jayhawks put much of that depth on display in last weekend’s 55-0 victory over Middle Tennessee, their first shutout since 2008.
Through KU’s 2-2 start, Leipold’s enthusiasm for this year’s squad has only been reinforced, as he explained on Monday.
“I love this team, I love their attitude, I love their work ethic,” he said. “It hasn’t been always clean and perfect, but we continue to get better and I still think we have our best football in front of us, and it’s going to be needed this week.”
The Jayhawks will play their first of eight straight Big 12 games, and it’s about as difficult an introduction as they could possibly get: No. 12 Utah at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday at 9:25 p.m. Central time.
“You’re trying to get what we need, then get out of there and keep the guys fresh and hungry mentally and physically to go out and play this gantlet that we’re going to play,” defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald said. “And starting off the second game of the conference (schedule) out in Utah, they didn’t do us any favors. So that’s going to be a fun game, a fun environment to play in.”
KU fans will remember fondly the team’s last visit to the Beehive State: an upset win over then-No. 7 BYU on Nov. 16, 2024. That is the Jayhawks’ lone road win against a ranked team under Leipold, and one of six road wins against Big 12 foes in his tenure (the only one since then was at UCF last season).
Utah has started 4-0, most recently taking down Iowa State at Jack Trice Stadium on Sept. 26 before enjoying a bye week.
The Utes didn’t have the smoothest offseason, as it featured a transition to their longtime head-coach-in-waiting Morgan Scalley, but one in which instead of retiring, Scalley’s predecessor Kyle Whittingham moved to Michigan and took a variety of players and staffers with him. But Scalley retained some key contributors, including a pair of third-team all-conference honorees in dual-threat quarterback Devon Dampier and running back Wayshawn Parker.
“I think he’s made a great transition to the head coaching role and kind of kept a lot of the same blueprint, philosophies, but I’m sure there’s some small little nuances that he’s added,” Leipold said.
Last year, in their first meeting with the Utes as Big 12 foes, a do-or-die season finale with bowl eligibility on the line for KU, the Jayhawks set out to run the ball down Utah’s throats — with a great deal of success — and actually contained Dampier fairly well, only to be undone by a pair of fourth-quarter interceptions thrown by Jalon Daniels.
It’ll be hard for KU to fall back on its same defensive strategy from last season given the addition of a new offensive coordinator, Kevin McGiven, who brought along a top player from Utah State in receiver Braden Pegan. On Wednesday a CBS Sports article declared McGiven’s scheme, which makes heavy use of Dampier’s versatile lefty backup Byrd Ficklin, “college football’s most creative offense and a DC’s worst nightmare.”
McDonald, for his part, did indeed call it the most creative one that he’s seen, and praised McGiven for having “picked up the torch and done a hell of a job.”
“In my opinion, they got, besides our running backs, they got the best running back in the conference,” McDonald said. “I mean, that guy, he’s a special running back. We’re going to have our hands full. It’s going to be a great challenge for us against those guys.”
Utah also has an interesting approach to blocking for Parker, bolstering its offensive line with so-called “rhino” tight ends — 5-foot-11, 276-pound Sione Motuapuaka and 5-foot-11, 317-pound Semi Taulanga — who serve a sort of hybrid fullback role.
Dealing with the Utes’ wrinkles will test the legitimacy of a KU defense that has been steady against the run all through the season and shown tremendous growth against the pass.
Meanwhile, on the other end, the Jayhawks’ offense, which is gradually getting back several of its injured playmakers, will have to string drives together far more effectively than in its past matchups against power-conference opponents: “I feel we are starting to catch our rhythm a little bit and our click, and I saw it again today in practice,” associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki said on Tuesday. And they’ll have to do it against a team that has allowed 41 total points in four games.
“Obviously that place will be rocking, you know what I mean, on a Saturday night. It’ll be a hostile environment,” Kotelnicki said. “Just right for us. Perfect … That’s the kind of atmosphere that people think about when they think about college football.”
NO. 12 UTAH UTES (4-0, 1-0 BIG 12) vs. KANSAS JAYHAWKS (2-2, 0-1 BIG 12)
• Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, 9:25 p.m. Central time
• Broadcast: ESPN
• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KKSW FM 105.9)
• Betting line: Utah -15.5; over/under 51.5
• Series history: Utah leads 3-2
KEEP AN EYE OUT
1. Entrenched: Last year’s Utes featured two offensive tackles who were first-round picks. This year, the Utah offensive line has five new starters. And while the group has clearly done just fine so far, tackles Cedric Jefferson and Zereoue Williams aren’t Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu. If Leroy Harris III, who through four games is Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded power-conference defensive end, and David Santiago, who isn’t far behind, can maintain their impressive level of play from the early stages of the season, there could be opportunities for KU to make Dampier uncomfortable — and, with the secondary’s help, potentially even intercept a pass for the first time this season.
2. Black mark: While KU was having historic success on both defense and offense in its shutout win over Middle Tennessee, its special teams looked suspect in one particular area: kickoff coverage. The Blue Raiders’ Santana Fleming returned consecutive kicks for 38 and 52 yards, both up the right sideline. In retrospect, Leipold attributed these to a combination of members of the unit not fulfilling their responsibilities and errant ball placement on the kicks from Dane Efird. Leipold said the Jayhawks need to be better in this realm. It’ll certainly be an area to watch, especially with KU having already conceded a kickoff-return touchdown to Arizona State earlier in the season. For what it’s worth, Utah does have the Big 12’s preseason all-league return man in Mana Carvalho, but he returns punts.
3. Center of attention: The KU offensive line has been in a bit of flux early in the season, first because DeAndre Harper was rotating in for Nick Morrow at right tackle, then when Connor Stroh replaced Amir Herring at left guard — in turn pushing Herring over to rotate with Tavake Tuikolovatu on the right side — but then the position group had to make its first injury-related change against Middle Tennessee when center Kasen Carpenter got hurt. Instead of sliding in Herring, who has worked at center in the past, the Jayhawks went with redshirt freshman Anderson Kopp, who acquitted himself quite well: “Seeing him come and take significant reps and not skip a beat is a huge deal for us,” Kotelnicki said. Herring ultimately got a handful of snaps of his own. Carpenter will be available again this week, but he’s had an inconsistent start to the year and it’ll be interesting to see how he performs in his return from injury.
SPOTLIGHT ON…
Cam Pickett: This is the stage of the season at which Pickett began to hit his stride last year after battling injury early on. Perhaps he can do so again. The former Ball State transfer wideout, who tied for the team lead in receptions in 2025 even as he wasn’t fully healthy, this time returned to action against Middle Tennessee and caught six passes for 49 yards on eight targets. He didn’t look fully himself, as he stumbled or didn’t make much out of a couple of quick screen passes, but if he hits the ground running against Utah, it could be a significant boon to the KU offense as it looks to gain traction against one of the best defenses it will face this season. Kotelnicki has said that he hopes for Pickett to be a “main weapon” going forward.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
110: Isaiah Marshall’s total number of rushing yards in the win over Middle Tennessee, which was the most for a KU quarterback in four years.
32: Total number of snaps that Utah quarterback Byrd Ficklin has lined up at a position other than quarterback this season, according to PFF.
2: The number of teams that rank in the top 10 nationally in both total defense and total offense (LSU and Kansas).
PREDICTION
Utah wins 27-17. Marshall is clearly taking significant steps on a weekly basis, but it’s hard to imagine this, his first road start against a top-15 team, being the game where he really hits his stride. The Jayhawks’ defense should hold firm for the most part, but like against Missouri, a couple of explosive plays — in this case engineered by McGiven’s trickery — can be enough to kick an offense into gear. KU will fight but fall short of an impressive result.
