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Big 12 Coach Rankings: Lance Leipold recognized before 1st season with Kansas football

By Ethan Lee

OXFORD, OHIO - SEPTEMBER 28: Head coach Lance Leipold of the Buffalo Bulls watches his team on the sidlines during the game against the Miami of Ohio RedHawks at Yager Stadium on September 28, 2019 in Oxford, Ohio. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
OXFORD, OHIO - SEPTEMBER 28: Head coach Lance Leipold of the Buffalo Bulls watches his team on the sidlines during the game against the Miami of Ohio RedHawks at Yager Stadium on September 28, 2019 in Oxford, Ohio. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images) /
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The Jayhawks landed a coach with a ton of upside in Lance Leipold but will he ever be able to turn the Kansas football program around?

The Kansas football program is by far one of the worst in the country, regardless of division. The Jayhawks have struggled mightily for years and are looking to find a way to get some wins against just about anybody.

Luckily for them, Lance Leipold was interested in leaving Buffalo and wanted to try and turn things around for the Jayhawks in Lawrence.

Leipold has an impressive resume and he was hired after KU made the decision to move on from Les Miles, who was leaving after the Kansas football program had fallen into chaos and controversy.

Before he was hired to fix the Jayhawks, Leipold was busy salvaging and building the Buffalo Bulls. Prior to that, Leipold was a consistent winner with the Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks at the Division III level of college football.

In total, Leipold went 109-6 at Wisconsin-Whitewater. In his first two years at Buffalo, his teams went 7-17, but went 30-16 over the next four seasons.

So, he’s got plenty of experience winning without having a ton of resources at his disposal. He’ll need those sort of skills at Kansas.

Kansas football: The Jayhawks’ Lance Leipold is currently regarded as one of the best coaches in the Big 12

With that sort of resume, Leipold has already landed a pretty favorable spot in the Big 12 coach rankings. Despite the fact that he hasn’t even coached a single season as a head coach in the Big 12, he’s already in the top half of the conference’s coaches, according to CBS Sports and 247Sports.

Experts from CBS Sports and 247Sports ranked the Big 12 coaches in the following order prior to the start of the 2021 season:

  1. Lincoln Riley
  2. Matt Campbell
  3. Mike Gundy
  4. Gary Patterson
  5. Lance Leipold
  6. Chris Kleiman
  7. Neal Brown
  8. Steve Sarkisian
  9. Matt Wells
  10. Dave Aranda

That’s a pretty good spot for Leipold to land, but he’ll have to back it up as the head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks. It’ll be an uphill battle as the KU football program is a mess, but he’s been a consistent winner everywhere else he’s been. It stands to reason that, if given enough time, he can clean up the mess he inherited.

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