Where KU Jayhawks football coaches are seeing progress — even amid lopsided results
One of Kansas coach Lance Leipold’s favorite plays from last game came at the end of the first quarter.
Freshman running back Devin Neal took a handoff and made it to the second level. His body was originally aimed toward KU’s sideline when he was about to meet up with an Iowa State safety.
And then ... boom.
“He finally put that left foot in the ground and then just it got north and south and really accelerated through,” Leipold said. “He hadn’t been doing that in camp.”
Neal’s momentum and burst pushed him forward. He ran through that attempted tackle, and though he was wrapped up by another defender, it took that Iowa State player four yards to bring Neal down after an 11-yard gain.
Leipold knows it can be difficult to keep proper perspective when evaluating a team, especially after a loss as jolting as KU’s 59-7 defeat at Iowa State last Saturday. And Leipold continued to emphasize Thursday that he is not going to allow his team at any point to play the “moral victory” card.
Still ... Neal’s run signified something important as KU’s players and coaches look to build on the positives the rest of their 12-game season.
The team is making progress ... if you know the places to look for it.
“We are a better off offense holistically than we were that first game (against South Dakota) and the only game that we won,” Leipold said. “So those are the things that you’ve got to continue to measure and evaluate. But of course, the competition keeps getting better.”
Neal, though, is just one example of the benefit of seeing how it’s certainly possible for improvement to take place quickly.
After coming in as a consensus four-star recruit, the true freshman Neal had just one carry in KU’s opening game. Since then, Leipold says Neal has been coachable while working on his craft, notably improving when it comes to picking correct run lanes while also lowering his pad level to add physicality to his carries.
That’s created better results too. Neal rushed 17 times for 107 yards against Duke two weeks ago, then had 15 carries for 83 yards against Iowa State.
“I think between getting a feel and gaining confidence and having some success is what I really kind of enjoy,” Leipold said. “That’s the part sometimes that gets lost in this is when you see somebody where he was two months ago almost — not even really, six weeks ago — and to where he was in running the ball against one of the best run defenses in the country, that’s exciting for our future.”
KU offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki also credited Neal for being “super-coachable.”
“He understands there’s plenty of room for growth, and he’s doing some things really well,” Kotelnicki said. “But the fact — and it’s probably really evident on film as he carries the ball — is his ability to start to get north and south now ... he’s running with what we call a fall-forward mentality, and saying, ‘OK, if someone’s gonna tackle me, I’m gonna be running through arm tackles.’ And that shows up on film, and that showed up against pretty good defense last week.”
Leipold has been encouraged by other areas as well.
One in particular is KU’s run blocking, with part of the development coming from left tackle Earl Bostick. Leipold believes some of that is the result of gaining continuity, as Bostick said in a conversation recently that he believed offensive line coach Scott Fuchs was his ninth different position coach while at KU.
“It’s crazy. But now you see a guy that’s playing better, and he’s starting to see it,” Leipold said. “And again, I think once we can hit that type of stability, you’re gonna see players elevate their game.”
Another good sign? When Bostick was injured late in the Iowa State rout, he was urging Leipold to put him back in the game. The coach had to be the one to keep him out while taking the conservative approach.
Kotelnicki also saw a short-yardage example against Iowa State where his linemen kept battling through the play and pushed the pile forward at the end.
“That seems so subtle, and so small. But that wasn’t happening on game one, you know what I mean?” Kotelnicki said. “Something simple like that, physical to strain and do that ... I know it’s a small moment — probably no one even noticed it maybe other than myself and some of the other coaches, OK — but it was a moment I said, ‘This is progress.’”
Kotelnicki said this type of topic was brought up in a meeting with the offensive players earlier this week. Sometimes steps forward can be hard to measure when they come outside the scoreboard.
He reminded his guys, though, that nowhere around KU’s football offices is there an emphasis on winning. Instead, the focus is individual improvement ... with winning coming as a result of that process.
“Now, at the end of the day, we want that progress to start to show up on the scoreboard, right, with wins and losses. But those are the things that we have to talk about,” Kotelnicki said. “When you think about getting better every day, you have to be able to point out those things that we are getting better at. Because at some point, like we talk to the kids (about), bam, it does show up on the scoreboard, and you win those close games.
“And the next thing you know, you’re rolling.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 2:53 PM with the headline "Where KU Jayhawks football coaches are seeing progress — even amid lopsided results."
