Kansas knocked BYU from the unbeaten ranks on Saturday, beating the Cougars 17-13 in Provo. Lance Leipold spoke with the media postgame about the pooch punt that helped the Jayhawks take the lead, a clutch defensive performance, and his team’s emotions after the win.

Practice makes perfect with pooch punt

Early in the fourth quarter, Kansas opted to have Jalon Daniels kick a quick punt after the Jayhawks were in no man’s land on fourth-and-long. The punt hit off the helmet of a BYU player and Quentin Skinner was able to fall on it.

Following the lucky break, the Jayhawks scored the game-winning touchdown. Leipold said they’ve always practiced this, and it worked out in their favor.

“We've done it every Thursday since I've been a head coach, and I think we've done it three times, and two of them have worked out really well, and this was one of them,” Leipold said. “So, it's something that we've worked on. It's something to have just in case. Obviously, we didn't plan on it working the way it played out there, but it was huge. And again, Quentin Skinner, who's on the punt team to begin with, does a great job covering things, was really aware of the situation, landing on the ball.”

It was the second time Kansas has had an opportunity to recover a muffed punt this season. Against Illinois, it got called back but the same refereeing crew let this call stand.

“I said something to the officiating crew,” Leipold said. “It's the same crew we had at Illinois when we had the chance for the recovery. That was a muff, and they got the ball back. It ended up being a big play. This one went our way.”

Defense comes up clutch down the stretch

Kansas allowed just 13 points on Saturday, the least BYU has scored in a game this season. The defense was strong for much of the game and made big plays when it mattered.

As halftime approached, it looked like BYU would take the lead and get the ball heading out of the break. Mello Dotson picked off Jake Retzlaff in the end zone with the Cougars driving to keep the game tied at 10-10 at halftime.

“Well, as you can see, that was a huge play,” Leipold said. “For Mello to make another big play like that was big. They elected to throw the fade route, and he made a play to get the turnover, especially with the, I'm sure they were aggressive in mindset, knowing that they had the ball coming out the second half.”

BYU scored on a marathon 17-play, 10:26 drive to open the second half. However, the Jayhawks limited the Cougars to three instead of seven. Leipold said it was one of the longest drives he’s seen in his career, and it was “huge” to hold BYU to a field goal.

It also looked like BYU would take a late lead and sneak out with a win, having the ball inside the red zone with under two minutes to play. However, a false start forced a fourth-and-long, and the Jayhawks came up with the stop and the win.

“We had a plan, they may try to run it twice and then the penalty gave us some room to work with and were able to make the play and came up with some good solid tackles,” Leipold said. “Probably some of our better tackling that we had done was in those later part of those drives. So it was huge to see.”

Excited, proud of his team

This season has not been the easiest for the Jayhawks. They got off to a rough start but never gave up and placed themselves on a trajectory to finish the season strong. Leipold continues to emphasize how proud he is of his team’s ability to stick together.

“The thing that you've heard me say many weeks in a row is that this group has stuck together and continued to work. And it truly has. I'm very proud of the way they've done it,” Leipold said. “The way our leadership has really led this team, our coaching staff and the job that they've done. And for us to get back-to-back victories over ranked teams says a lot of that and where it's at.”