The Kansas football team has named Taiwo Onatolu, who spent last season as a special teams analyst, as its new special teams coordinator.
Onatolu replaced Jake Schoonover, whom head coach Lance Leipold said earlier this month will take on a greater role in recruiting.
Although Onatolu has been given the title, several of the Jayhawks’ assistant coaches will take on additional responsibilities with special teams beginning this season.
Onatolu was named the defensive ends coach after last season, and he will continue in that role as well. He was also the special teams coordinator and defensive ends coach under Leipold at Buffalo in 2019 and 2020.
“Jacob Schoonover has done an outstanding job in recruiting and our relations with high school coaches, especially with the state of Missouri and Kansas,” Leipold said during the team’s signing day press conference on Feb. 2. “It became apparent to me as I traveled with him through Kansas — and as we know, what’s going to be very important to our future is our local recruiting — and he will take over a role as well as director of high school relations.
“We will have somebody that will have more time with that and expand that role more and add to our recruiting staff in a way that I feel will benefit our program in the long term.”
An inside linebacker from 2007-10 at Nebraska-Omaha, Onatolu was an assistant coach at Missouri State from 2011-14 before he moved to Buffalo, where he was the director of player personnel for two seasons before he began coaching the cornerbacks.
The football team rounded out its coaching staff earlier this month when it hired Jim Panagos to coach the defensive tackles.
