LAWRENCE - Kansas football is deep into fall camp, and associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki says the early signs are encouraging on both sides of the ball.
Kotelnicki said the Jayhawks have shown strong retention in the scheme, a product of the amount of work the staff has been able to do with players throughout the year. In his view, the learning process didn’t begin this month. It started back in January, and that longer runway has helped the group settle in.
One area that has stood out to him is the offensive line. As Kansas sorts out the best fit at each spot, Kotelnicki likes the way the unit is coming together. He also pointed to the size in that group, saying there is more of it now than when he was previously on staff at KU before his recent stint at Penn State, but without losing athleticism or physicality.
The run game, unsurprisingly, remains central to the conversation. Kansas will have a new starting quarterback this year, whether it’s redshirt junior Cole Ballard or redshirt sophomore Isaiah Marshall, and Kotelnicki acknowledged that a strong ground attack can ease the pressure on someone in that role. He added that even an experienced quarterback benefits from a quality running game, and that’s still true here because the Jayhawks expect to have one.
Junior running back Yasin Willis and redshirt junior running back Dylan Edwards are already familiar names, but Kotelnicki also mentioned redshirt sophomore running back Jalen Dupree as a player to watch. He said Dupree and Willis bring a lot of physicality to the backfield, and that kind of style can wear down a defense over the course of a game, especially in the secondary.
Kotelnicki was also asked how closely this offense might resemble the one Kansas fans saw during his earlier run in Lawrence, when he was the offensive coordinator under head coach Lance Leipold. He helped guide successful seasons in 2022 and 2023, but he said the bigger goal is simpler than matching any one past version of the offense. What he wants people to say is that it’s good football, whether they know the sport well or not.
He described the kind of team he hopes to put on the field in 2026 as explosive, disciplined, and physical.
That balance between creativity and teaching has always been part of Kotelnicki’s identity, and he said it starts with making sure players understand the basics before the offense gets layered and expanded. His approach is to teach the system, keep checking for understanding, and then make sure the creativity doesn’t get in the way of fundamentals.
He gave a simple example: if Kansas is executing a slant route well, that’s when the staff can begin to build off it with motion, play-action, or another route concept elsewhere in the play to make it more dynamic.
Kotelnicki said some of what his offenses do can look more complicated than it really is, and he suggested this team may even use formations this season that he has not thought of yet. The key, from his perspective, is controlling the time between one play ending and the next one beginning.
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