Having the chance to be around Lance Leipold this morning you get the feel he is exactly what KU needs.

He gave no promises of going to a bowl game in year one and no talk about how the good the team will be right away.

There wasn’t a lot of rah-rah. There was no fluff. What you saw in Leipold is what you get. I know people who are very familiar with his coaching ability, how organized he is, and how he gets the most out of his players and coaches.

There are some key areas where Leipold stands along with the coaches he surrounds himself with. The first key is the ability to evaluate talent. Buffalo has had several players taken in the NFL or signed contracts who were barely recruited.

That is one trait past successful coaches have had at Kansas. You have to be able to find talent and develop it because you might not always have the top picks.

“I think we've done an outstanding job through the past, having been able to surround ourselves with people that are great evaluators of talent, but find guys that are hungry, guys that have a ceiling, and do our research that way,” Leipold said.

“I believe highly in how our practice methods go that we're able to develop players through repetition and competition and, of course, through off season development. And those things have been able to pay a lot of dividends for us for guys that maybe others have passed on.”

The coaches who have done it at Kansas in the most recent decades are Mark Mangino and Glen Mason. Leipold did his research on the program and believes you can win at Kansas.

“I had a chance to talk to Coach Mangino, I reached out to Coach Mason,” he said. “I've known Terry Allen and have connection to him, to people that have been here, and have had some very good talks. And through them and some of those that know me, they told me they thought I was a fit as well. I've talked to others in other roles.”

After talking with past coaches, he knows winning football games at Kansas is doable. He was asked what he learned from talking to them. “You can win,” he said. “And I think some of the ways that they've gone about it are blueprints. You need some consistency, is what they've said, but a lot of great things about it, but alignment from coaching up through administration is extremely important. And again, surround yourself with people that can do it. But locality and things, you can recruit a lot of different places and find players that are a fit to you.”

Leipold said he is from a small town between Madison and Milwaukee. As a Brewers fan he also used the Kansas City Royals to compare that they do not always have the same advantages as the Yankees.

He’s been able to win at the places before Kansas by building a culture, being consistent, and keeping continuity. That is not going to happen overnight, but it will get done.

“I think it's just expecting, how you treat people and doing it right every day,” Leipold said. “I like to try and think about how I'd want to be treated and sometimes it's being firm, and then sometimes you got to put your arm around them.”

One of the messages Leipold will start pushing home with the players is pride in playing for the University of Kansas.

“Culture is a daily process of expectations and beliefs and how you do it,” he said. “And one of the things we're going to talk about here along that culture is, and I'm not even sure where it's at right now, but we're not going to play at the University of Kansas, we're going to play for the University of Kansas.

“Sometimes, with young men, we want to make sure that they understand that role and what that is, and have pride in doing that. And I think sometimes when you have that and you get your players to be the leaders in it, it's a player-led program, not just a coaching staff-led program, you have a great chance for success.”