While new Kansas football coach Lance Leipold had some semblance of control of his destiny during the recent coaching search that brought him to Lawrence, there were some uneasy days for two staffs that waited on the outcome.
In Buffalo, N.Y., where Leipold spent the previous six years and worked closely with some of his closest friends, their regular contact went quiet.
“He got the job and announced it on a Friday morning and he kind of left me hanging out there all weekend long until Sunday night (when he asked me), ‘Are you with us,'” new KU defensive coordinator Brian Borland said Tuesday.
Borland’s immediate response: “Yes, I am.”
“So, it’s been kind of a whirlwind,” he added. “But it’s pretty exciting.”
Borland, new KU offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, and others, had discussed the topic enough times in the past, when Leipold’s name surfaced in other job searches, to feel confident that if KU deemed Leipold to be their guy, they’d be going with him.
Still, this was their livelihoods on the line, jobs they did for a man they liked and believed in and were comfortable around. Until they knew for sure that they were part of his future plans, there were some restless nights.
“You never know, right,” Kotelnicki said this week. “You don’t know the stipulations and all that sort of stuff. But I believed in our relationship (and thought) we’d have an opportunity to go together.”
In Lawrence, where former KU coach Les Miles’ staff was in the middle of spring football, the uncertainty was even greater.
None of them knew Leipold. They barely knew new Kansas Athletic Director Travis Goff, for that matter. And because of that, the possibility that KU and its new football coach, whoever it wound up being, would wipe the slate clean and start all the way over was neither hard to imagine nor at all comforting.
Having a job to do each day helped them get through it.
“That was the biggest thing,” cornerbacks coach Chevis Jackson said Tuesday. “Show up and work. That’s where I was. Just working. It was just another Tuesday in Lawrence.”
Defensive line coach Kwahn Drake fell back on words of wisdom from his grandmother to help him navigate the uncertain times.
“She always said, ‘If you’re going to pray, there’s no sense in worrying. If you’re going to worry, there’s no sense in praying,'” Drake recalled. “So the approach that most of us took was to do our (job).”
While they all had something to lean on to help them wait things out, none of it was easy for guys on either staff. In the end, Leipold brought five Buffalo assistants with him to be full-time assistants at Kansas and he asked five full-time assistants from the previous staff at KU to join him.
Others from both Buffalo and KU also joined Leipold’s new staff, but in different, off-the-field roles.
While the meshing of the two groups appears to be going well thus far — the fact that Leipold brought his coordinators with him has helped a lot in the transition — it was Leipold’s approach that gave it the best chance to succeed.
Rather than telling KU holdovers Jackson, Drake, Emmett Jones, Jacob Schoonover and Jonathan Wallace that they were being retained, he told them simply, “I’m hiring you.”
“He said those words,” Drake recalled. “That was major for me, and I was excited to hear it from him. That was the first time I’d heard it like that.”
Added Wallace: “For coach to say it and put it in that sense, that means he wants us. He wants us to be here. And I think you need that.”
Just like that, the new coaching staff was a team. No my guys versus the holdovers. No new versus old. No thoughts of, “Well, he had to keep some of them.”
Just us. We. A group known as Lance Leipold’s coaching staff.
When asked what he was looking for when interviewing the previous staff about sticking around, Leipold said one thing mattered above all else.
“Their desire that they wanted to be here and be part of this was No. 1,” Leipold said Tuesday.
For those he kept, proving that was the easiest part of the whole process.
Wallace said his approach was about being open and honest. He emphasized that he wanted to stick around so the players he coached could benefit from some true consistency for a change.
Drake made sure to express the passion and enthusiasm he had developed for Kansas football, the players and the program’s potential, during his first two years in town.
“When you come to a place, you invest not just yourself, but your heart, your emotions, your family. I purchased a home here,” Drake said. “Sometimes when guys get retained, it’s a little bit of you’re over there in the corner. When it comes to coach Leipold, it’s always this is what we’re going to do, and this is how we’re going to move it forward.”
The formation of a new staff actually provided Leipold’s new crew with its first true teaching opportunity.
For the Buffalo gang, it’s been all about showing how to handle new challenges. They appear to be meeting this one head on and with great enthusiasm.
For the coaches who were already here, it’s about showing the players how to deal with adversity. None of them knew whether they would be around this summer when Leipold was hired. But they continued to coach and teach and perfect and preach.
“There is uncertainty,” Wallace said. “Does it make you uncomfortable? Sure. But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to understand what’s important first, and that’s these young men. That’s my job. To make sure that they get the teachings that they need. So it’s how can I be an example for them?”
