Lance Leipold spent the offseason chasing one thing above all else: a roster that can hold up when the game gets late and the snaps start piling up.
That’s the thread running through Kansas’ winter work, and it comes straight from the head coach’s own postmortem. Leipold said at Big 12 Media Days that the Jayhawks’ recurring issue in close games pushed him to dig deeper into where the breakdowns were happening.
"We've lost too many close football games," Leipold said at Big 12 Media Days. "When I started looking at some of those losses, and I look at the total number of snaps played by certain guys on certain sides of the ball, they've been on the field a long time. And where are we at that time of the game when we need a stop?"
That concern wasn’t abstract. KU is 2-10 in games in which it was a one-score contest in the 4th quarter since the start of the 2024 season, and last season alone the Jayhawks let fourth-quarter leads slip away against Missouri, Cincinnati, Arizona and Utah. In the first three of those games, the defense couldn’t deliver the stop it needed.
The snap counts help explain why Leipold kept circling back to depth. Against Missouri, Lyrik Rawls played all 86 snaps, Jalen Todd played 78 snaps and Trey Lahtan played 76 snaps. Taylor Davis, Bangally Kamara, DJ Graham, Mason Ellis and Tommy Dunn all topped 52 snaps, meaning at least 60% of the game for several key defenders.
The Cincinnati game was even more taxing for KU’s back end. Rawls, Lathan, Todd, Davis and Austin Alexander each played more than 70 of the 88 snaps, including four of the starting five secondary players and the middle linebacker. Kansas had trouble slowing Cincinnati’s passing game that day.
Arizona followed a similar pattern. Todd was on the field for all 63 snaps, Davis logged 61, and Lathan and Kamara each played more than 50.
Leipold saw a larger trend in Big 12 play: too many back seven defenders were carrying the load for more than three quarters of the game. That led him to a simple offseason question.
"Do we have a way to rotate more earlier in the game? Could we be a fresher football team?
Can we be a healthier football team late in the season that allows us to overcome some of these things?" Leipold said.
"I think we have a chance to do that with this roster."
Kansas answered that question in the transfer portal, targeting experienced depth at the spots where rotation matters most.
Leipold pointed first to the offensive line, running back, linebacker and safety as areas where he likes the way the room looks.
"I like our depth in the offensive line, I really do. The competitiveness is there," Leipold said.
"I like the depth that running back a lot. Our depth at linebacker, our depth at safety.
Now we need some safeties to emerge completely, but I like again where some of that is as far as athleticism goes."
The running back room now includes Syracuse transfer Yasin Willis and Kansas State transfer Dylan Edwards, both with Power 4 experience, plus Jalen Dupree from Colorado State, who rushed for over 500 yards last season. Up front, Kansas added Cal transfer Nick Morrow at tackle, Texas transfer Connor Stroh at guard and Oklahoma State transfer Kasen Carpenter at center.
On defense, the Jayhawks brought in linebacker help with Jaron Willis from South Carolina, Bam Crouch from Boston College, Jibreel Al-Amin from Marshall and Quincy Davis from New Mexico State to support Trey Lathan and deepen the rotation. At safety, Kansas added Georgia’s Jaden Harris, Louisville’s Corey Gordon, Georgia Tech’s Christian Pritchett and Iowa State’s Khijohnn Cummings-coleman.
That kind of roster building matters even more with the schedule KU is facing. The Jayhawks will play nine straight weeks, with their bye coming in Week 4 after the trip to London. Leipold still wishes the Middle Tennessee State game had been moved to Week 0.
"We're going to make the best of it and can't make excuses," Leipold said.
For Leipold, the offseason work was about shrinking the drop-off from one player to the next. As camp opens, he feels better about that part of the roster than he has at any point during his time in Lawrence.
"I think one of the things that we feel good about our team this year is from the first guy that steps on the field to the next guy, the gap there is the least it's ever been in our time," he said.
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For KU fans, the night was a reminder that even elite young scorers can hit a rough patch once the defensive attention tightens and the schedule piles up. Jazz summer league coach Steve Wojciechowski and several scouts still came away focused on Petersons offensive upside, which is why one off night does not seem likely to change how people around the league view him. [Read more 🡒]
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Harris return to Kansas was framed as a chance to keep building, not just for the season ahead but for his long-term future. He said the fit with the coaching staff and the defense mattered, along with the chance to show more of what he can do with his athleticism after adding size and strength. With a trip overseas on the schedule and his own career arc still unfolding, Harris sounded like someone betting on both the program and himself. [Read more 🡒]
Jayhawks Offense Faces A Huge 2026 Question Fans Can't Ignore
Kansas offense spent much of 2025 trying to find its footing after turning over so many key pieces, and the results showed up in the efficiency numbers as well as the scoreboard. The Jayhawks finished 40th nationally in EPA per play and 32nd in success rate, but the bigger concern was consistency, with the unit averaging 28.1 points and 390.5 yards per game in what became the least productive offense of Lance Leipolds tenure.
Now the conversation shifts to whether the 2026 version can look more settled on paper, starting with a position-by-position look at how the roster has changed. There is still a familiar voice helping guide the offense, but the most important question for Kansas is whether the pieces around him are enough to lift a group that never quite clicked last fall. [Read more 🡒]