Offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki displayed his creative ability throughout the win against Illinois. He broke down how important having Jalon Daniels back was for the team, the unorthodox formation that got Devin Neal Free, and how he makes use of all of the offensive weapons.

Jalon Daniels’ first game back

Jalon Daniels returned to the field for the first time in 2023 and turned in a solid performance. His 277 yards passing and two touchdowns provided the players, coaches and crowd a big boost as he made his season debut.

Despite all of the plays that Daniels made happen with his legs and arms, Kotelnicki says that the biggest improvement Daniels displayed from last year was above the shoulders.

“I would tell you that his understanding of what we're trying to do schematically and his ability to maybe get off a read really quick is at a high level right now,” Kotelnicki said.

While Kotelnicki gets a lot of credit for rolling out some interesting formations that keep defenses guessing, he is quick to credit Daniels and others for their ability to process it all.

“I've always said that we do what we're able to do offensively because of the players that we have, including the quarterbacks and what their capacity to intellectually handle all the stuff that we do,” Kotelnicki said. “And he does a great job with it, really does.”

Players help with designed play called “Smoke Break”

With just over 10 minutes to go in the third quarter, the Jayhawks moved into an unorthodox formation. They moved four offensive linemen to the left sideline, with Devin Neal behind them. Neal motioned back toward the middle, received a touch pass from Daniels, and gained 23 yards on the play.

Over the offseason, Kotelnicki said that some players were going to get a crack at designing their own plays. Friday night’s play to Neal was the first confirmed sign of a play that was drawn up by a player.

The player behind the play? Tight end Trevor Kardell.

"There's three people that you can give credit to for that,” Kotelnicki said. “One, the shift in the motion was Trevor Kardell's idea. And then two of our special team analysts, Zac Barton and Aaron Miller.”

Kotelnicki mentioned that he considers him and the rest of the people looking for plays to run are some of the biggest thieves taking ideas from other teams. He said that Barton and Miller were watching film to help out with the execution of that play.

“We put our own little flavor on it and just do some things that add stress, called the “Smoke Break,” because the lineman just got to stand over there and do nothing,” Kotelnicki said.

Limited targets for Mason Fairchild

During the 2022 season, Mason Fairchild seemed to be more involved in the passing game. In the last four games of the season, he had at least four catches in all of them. He has not seen the same numbers through to games this year, but Kotelnicki is not too worried about it.

“It's probably as much to do with the distribution and who else is being open,” Kotelnicki said. “If you're in a situation where we're completing less than 50 percent of our passes and then I'd be more concerned, but we're not forcing balls to anybody. It's just a matter of where people are at within a progression on a given day,”

Kotelnicki also mentioned that sometimes he was not always the main progression when he was catching a lot of passes. During the Jayhawks’ 5-0 start in 2022, Fairchild caught just four passes up that point.

At the end of the day Kotelnicki knows that there are a lot of weapons out there for quarterbacks to go to, so opportunities will come for a lot of different guys.

“As I said before, through the course of a year, because we're not just targeting a single player,” Kotelnicki said. “We're not just giving it to a single running back. We're able to distribute it, which means you've got to cover all of them and defend all of them."