Kansas football unveiled parts of upgrades to Anderson Family Football Complex to the players on Monday as part of Phase One of the Gateway District project. Head coach Lance Leipold said it was exciting to show the players some of the progress, as construction is still ongoing.

“It’s like a Christmas day type of thing that you see,” Leipold said. “And they see, they’re exciting in some of the areas. And it was important to address the areas they were going to be in the most first.”

The players themselves were complimentary of the upgrades. Jalon Daniels called the new facility “crazy.”

“As soon as you walk through the doors, it looks totally from how it was before,” Daniels said. “Then you walk downstairs to the blue everywhere. Then you go down, as soon as you walk down the stairs, you see the player's lounge. You’re able to see the massage chairs in a certain different room, glass everywhere… Definitely looks futuristic, and I’m glad that we’re able to make that progress.”

Devin Neal said it was a mark of progress of the program. It also allows future generations of Jayhawks to enjoy the work of those in the past.

“I think as older guys, it was really cool to know the amount of work we put in to get all this stuff right, just allowing the future generations and the young guys this,” Neal said. “Because for those young guys, they haven’t seen the old facility. The new facility, so just seeing them enjoy it and you know, they just soak it all in. It’s really cool for us to see because we put a lot of hard work into this facility and everything that’s been happening so far.”

Leipold echoed this sentiment as well. He said it was important for the current players to be rewarded for what they’ve done for the program.

“We could have gone for a weight room and renovated that area and had one that had windows or something, but they [current players] never would have saw it,” Leipold said. “So for them, it’s important for them to be rewarded for what they’ve done for this program, athletic department, again, campus and community. And to see them kind of do those things and spread out and grow is, I guess is unfortunately one thing that we don’t talk about enough when you’re in this role anymore. That’s very fulfilling as well.”

Cobee Bryant, however, is somewhat jealous that he can’t enjoy the upgrades for longer. Bryant was still very complimentary of seeing the improvements.

“[It’s] crazy, I’m not gonna lie I’m kind of jealous cause this is my last year here and I just can’t see it like I wanted to see it,” Bryant said. “I’m also mad about the stadium, too. But yeah man, that’s crazy. I want to thank all the boosters, the donors. I want to thank coach Leipold. It’s just crazy man, how he just helped change this stuff.”