Kansas enters the Border Showdown with its offense in good shape, and Andy Kotelnicki is once again at the center of it.
Kotelnicki, back in Lawrence after returning in January from Penn State as Kansas’ associate head coach, is working with a new group of Jayhawks this time around. Still, the message he’s pushing sounds familiar: keep the standard high and make the details matter.
“Our standard of excellence didn’t change,” Kotelnicki said Monday when asked what he was most encouraged by in the offensive performance Friday against Long Island University. “To go out there and have guys run the game plan in the second half showed that our guys were locked in and bought into the process of preparing.”
That mindset will matter even more against Missouri. Kotelnicki laid out the formula plainly: protect the ball, create big plays and stay tough up front.
“Make sure we’re taking care of the football, we have to be able to generate [explosiveness] against these guys,” Kotelnicki said. “We have to be resilient and strain on how we’re blocking.”
Kotelnicki has a long history with Kansas head coach Lance Leipold, having coached alongside him at Wisconsin-Whitewater and Buffalo before his first run with the Jayhawks from 2021 to 2023. Leipold said Kotelnicki’s first game back was a strong one.
“To have over 600 yards in the first game is not a bad returning debut for him as a play-caller,” Leipold said in an interview after the game against LIU.
Even with the sense that Kotelnicki had to build things back up after coming in from scratch with a new roster, Leipold said he quickly formed a connection with the offense, especially in those early meetings. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Isaiah Marshall said the same thing after Friday’s game.
“The meetings we have, he always has the offense engaged,” Marshall said in a postgame interview on Friday. “I feel like he’s [taken] time to have a talk with everybody on the offense.”
The Jayhawks were not fully healthy in the opener, with redshirt senior wide receiver Cam Pickett out because of a leg injury. Leipold still pointed to Kotelnicki’s approach as one that keeps the offense moving while also looking after the players in front of him.
For some of the newer faces, the first impression has stuck. Redshirt senior wide receiver Nik McMillan said Kotelnicki stood out immediately during his January visit, not just because of football talk but because of the broader conversation they had, including what McMillan was looking for in the transfer portal. That helped build trust and played a major role in McMillan’s decision to become a Jayhawk.
Junior running back Yasin Willis had already heard about Kotelnicki before arriving at Kansas. Trebor Peña, his former Syracuse teammate and now a practice squad wide receiver for the Jacksonville Jaguars, played with the Nittany Lions in his final college season and told Willis that Kotelnicki was excellent at putting together play calls.
“[Kotelnicki’s] a very energetic guy; that’s what I love about him," Willis said in a postgame interview on Friday. "He [brings] a lot of light into the room.”
Willis also described him as demanding when mistakes happen, and McMillan backed that up.
“He [doesn’t] care who you [are]; if you mess up, he’s going to yell at you,” McMillan said in a postgame interview on Friday. “I like that though.
I like being coached hard. I don't want [anybody] that’s just going to bow down just because you’re a good player; I want to get better.”
Marshall said Kotelnicki can bring a lighter touch, too, with one walk-through standing out in particular.
“We’ll have a walk-through, and he’ll have everybody take their shirts off,” Marshall said. “And he’ll take his shirt off too, so just little things like that [are] cool to see.”
Kansas and Kotelnicki will face Missouri on Friday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. CDT, with the game available to stream on FOX.
In Other News...
Kansas O-Line Has Something To Prove Before Missouri
Kansas spent its opener sorting out a rebuilt offensive line, and the early returns were encouraging. After losing three starters from 2025, the Jayhawks rolled past LIU 51-6 behind 613 total yards and strong work on third and fourth downs, a sign the front was doing its part in keeping the offense on schedule. Head coach Lance Leipold liked what he saw from the group as Kansas opened the year, but there is still a clear next step for a line trying to settle in quickly.
The next test comes into sharper focus with Missouri, a program that presents a much tougher style matchup than LIU did. The Tigers have a strong rushing offense and were already in action against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, so Kansas knows the challenge is about more than just pass protection or clean pockets. For a line with something to prove, this is the kind of game that can show whether the opener was a promising start or just the first step toward real steadiness. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Faces Two Lingering Questions Heading Into Its First Real Test
Kansas got little in the way of a real stress test in its first stretch, which is why the next game looms as a far better measuring stick for what this team actually is. The early schedule against lower-tier opponents told the Jayhawks only so much, leaving the usual September optimism intact while still keeping a few big-picture questions unresolved heading into a matchup that should reveal more.
The secondary is one of those spots, since the early pass defense work has not yet shown how the back end will hold up when it is challenged more consistently. The offensive line is another, with the unit still working toward a fuller answer after limited time together in camp, and those two areas figure to draw plenty of attention once Kansas finally faces an opponent capable of pushing both lines of the equation. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Heads Into Missouri With Two Big Injury Questions
Kansas spent part of its Week 1 victory over Long Island with one eye already on what comes next, and Lance Leipolds latest injury update gave the Jayhawks a little more to sort through before heading into the rivalry game at Missouri. The coach met with the media after the opener and addressed the status of wide receiver Cam Pickett and linebacker Bam Crouch, two players whose availability could shape how Kansas handles a far tougher test on the road.
Pickett has been working back in practice as he recovers, while Crouch was absent from practice because of an upper-body injury, leaving neither player definitively cleared for Saturday. For a Kansas team entering a critical matchup with Missouri, the uncertainty matters, especially with the Tigers also navigating their own injury issues and every depth chart decision carrying a little more weight than usual. [Read more 🡒]