Lance Leipold on David Booth’s donation, player availability reports, more

Head coach Lance Leipold met with the media on Kansas football’s media day on Thursday. Leipold discussed David Booth’s transformational $300 million donation to KU Athletics, the addition of Big 12 player availability reports, and getting ready to play on Week 0.

Booth’s donation ‘huge and unbelievable’

Kansas Athletics announced a $300 million donation from donor David Booth. $75 million is set to help complete the Gateway District project with the rest to “generate a stream of income that will strengthen Kansas Athletics across generations.” Leipold said the donation will impact the athletic department for years to come.

“It’s unbelievable as someone of like David Booth had that type of generosity and the impact it’ll make for our football program and athletic department for many years to come during a time that’s so important for us to keep moving in so many different directions of things, whether it be stadium or revenue share and all the different things that may continue to evolve in college athletics,” Leipold said. “A gift like this gives us the opportunity, you know, to stay strong.”

Lance Leipold has developed a personal relationship with Booth over his time as head coach. Booth, a Lawrence native who now lives in Austin, met with Leipold at his home shortly after he was named head coach. Leipold said Kansas’ win over Texas in 2022 was big to Booth who has always been appreciative of the program’s progress.

“Other times to have the opportunity to interact with him has been great,” Leipold said. “Obviously, he knows the importance of what athletics does for a university in many different scenarios, as he alluded to in the video. And he’s seen the benefit of what a successful college football program means in today’s age as well. And for that I can’t thank the man enough.”

Leipold’s opinion on player availability reports

The Big 12 announced that the conference will provide player availability reports for conference games in football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball. For football, daily reports will be required beginning three days before each game. Leipold said it was trending in this direction due to sports betting.

“We know why it’s being done for the other impact of things that happen in this country and worldwide,” Leipold said. “So, you know, it’s there. As long as it’s balanced for everyone and where it’s at. I think it’ll be – It’ll work out fine.”

Leipold said there are unique situations where player availability reports may not always be accurate. For example in 2023, Jalon Daniels got hurt 90 minutes before kickoff and was made unavailable.

“I use Jalon’s example in Texas a couple years ago, you know, we, you know, we’re at the hotel and, you know, we’re not even 90 minutes from kickoff and I find out he’s not playing,” Leipold said. “You know, is that where does that fall in those circumstances and how is that evaluated if we said he was available and wasn’t. So that’s the one that is unique to me.”

Getting over the fall camp hump to prepare for game week

Lance Leipold said his team is at a spot now where he can tell they’re getting anxious for game week and sick of practicing against themselves. Kansas embraces its routine and Leipold said it can be a grind to embrace some of the monotonous things to become great at something. The team might be a bit “heavy-legged” currently, but things will ramp up as they approach game week.

“You have to do those tasks that kind of require repetition and to embrace that kind of grind to do that. But I think we’re getting at that point,” Leipold said. “I think it showed itself a little bit to me today. I thought we’re okay out there today. I thought we looked a little heavy-legged and that happens at this time of camp. And as things start to taper here next couple days, as we approach game week, I think we’ll have them in a great spot and to be excited for kickoff.”

As Kansas approaches game week, the Jayhawks will go through meetings and a mock game scenario. With 50 new scholarship players and new staff members, Leipold said the team needs to run through what their routine will be on game day.

“So from going out, you know, with, I don’t know, 50 new, at least scholarship players, let alone others, we got a lot of players that are new in our program on how do we warm up on game day, how do we use half the field, where do we go?” Leipold said. “What’s the rotation of going out onto the field, so on and so forth. We’ll go through all of that. We’ll go through a mock game scenario which isn’t any different than probably 99% of the teams in the country will do something similar.”

Playing on Week 0 against a new-look Fresno State team

Kansas is one of five games on Week 0, taking on Fresno State. While it cut into Kansas’ summer conditioning by a week, it also gives the Jayhawks the opportunity to take the national spotlight and show off their new stadium.

“I think a lot of people across the country are excited about college football, excited to watch college football, watching games in August that count and are not just practice games,” Lance Leipold said. “I think for a football fan, that is exciting. And for us to have a window on national television to expose our program, our stadium and everything like that is something that we should be extremely excited about and embrace.”

Fresno State has a lot of new coaches and players. Leipold was complimentary of new head coach Matt Entz and has had experience playing close games with Mountain West schools, only beating Nevada by a touchdown.

“And so I know they’re going to be physical, they’re going to be disciplined,” Leipold said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re going to try to shorten the game up and make it into a four-quarter game. You know, our past games with Mountain West teams haven’t, you know, we’ve had to go to the wire, so we expect that to be a challenge.”