Kansas opened fall camp Tuesday with a clear defensive priority: talk more, and talk faster.
For middle linebacker Trey Lathan, that’s not just coach-speak. After looking back on the 2025 season, he said the Jayhawks never really built “a good foundation of leadership” on defense. What’s different now, he said, is the way players are holding one another to a higher standard.
“I would say a lot of guys hold each other accountable, not giving guys the opportunity just to slack,” Lathan said. “We didn’t have that last year.”
That shift has become a major point of emphasis as KU begins Lance Leipold’s sixth fall camp in Lawrence and 20th overall as a head coach. Leipold said he expects improvement on defense after a 2025 season that brought both big highs and ugly lows in D.K.
McDonald’s first year as defensive coordinator. Through the offseason, Leipold has pointed to a team that looks bigger and faster.
On Tuesday, though, he kept circling back to one theme.
“I keep saying communication because it was so important last year,” Leipold said. “When guys were hesitant, were not on the same page - we say it many times in our meetings that we could be wrong, but if we’re all on the same page with being wrong, we still have a chance to make it right.
“But when half of us are thinking this, the other half are there, because nobody’s communicating, that causes a lot of issues, and it did last year.”
The results showed it. KU finished as a below-average defense in Big 12 play, ranking 12th in the league in both scoring and yards allowed.
The Jayhawks also gave up too many explosive plays at the worst possible times, a problem that showed up in losses to Missouri, Cincinnati and Kansas State. Communication in the secondary came up repeatedly, especially when a young back end looked out of sync and unsure.
Lathan is expected to be one of the voices driving that fix this season. As KU’s starting middle linebacker and defensive anchor, he has been asked to take on more of a leadership role.
“I think Trey Lathan’s had a really good summer and offseason about stepping more into a leadership role and understanding what we need from a Mike backer and how that really filters through the defense,” Leipold said.
Lathan said that growth had already been a topic with coaches after the season, before he even made the decision to stay in Lawrence. He considered entering the transfer portal last winter, but returned and kept working on becoming a stronger presence away from the ball.
“Right after the season, our exit meeting, that’s one thing that we established, that we need leadership, something that we lacked, something that could have helped us definitely in the back end of the season,” Lathan said.
Leipold also pointed to Taylor Davis, a veteran who is expected to return as a starter in the secondary even while facing competition in a healthier safety room. And at Lathan’s position, KU brought in transfers Bam Crouch from Boston College and Quincy Davis from New Mexico State, both of whom have already drawn praise for how they’ve fit in.
“We do a lot of different things here, so just seeing them buy into the process, buy into our culture is something that we strive to do, embracing guys when they come from other programs,” Lathan said. “And just seeing them do that, it’s been awesome seeing them grow.”
For KU, the hope is straightforward: cleaner communication should lead to better confidence when the pressure rises. Leipold believes that if the defense can get everyone speaking the same language from the start, the unit has a better shot at avoiding the breakdowns that hurt it a year ago.
“They’ll speak up, again everyone will be on the same page, and I think we have a chance to be better in that regard from the jump,” Leipold said.
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