After falling to 2-6, Kansas has rattled off three straight wins against ranked opponents to be on the cusp of bowl eligibility. Lance Leipold met with the media after the game, discussing the keys to the 37-21 win over Colorado.
Leipold talked about how his team has continued to stay together, the efforts of Devin Neal, and the offenses’ start-to-finish performance.
Kansas has stayed together all season, finally reaping the rewards
If you’ve listened to any Leipold press conference this season, he’s stressed that his team will stick together through wins or losses. The team has continually worked and not given up when it would have been easy to see this season as lost. The Jayhawks have now seen the efforts of their hard work over the last three games.
“I'm extremely proud of them again, of their resolve and resiliency of going through it,” Leipold said. “There's a lot of negativity hanging around about what was wrong with this program and what should be done and things like that. We've talked about how close we were for a long time, and they owned it, they kept working, they stuck together, and you can see the results of that. And I think it is something that's truly special.”
Leipold said there were moments in the season when staying with that positive mindset was tough. Kansas had lost a lot of heartbreakers, but they knew they were close.
“It's tough walking into, whether it be a staff room or a team meeting room, when you know you're close,” Leipold said. “But again, the things that we've always talked about, the difference of winning and losing is always very close in every game, usually in that three to five play range we talk about. And we could point to those in every game that we didn't win, that some plays that if we would have made it could have definitely been different.”
Leipold said he was impressed by his team’s energy this week. It would have been easy to come out flat after a late, emotional win at BYU. Yet, they played with confidence and energy, best seen as the team jumped around in the huddle heading into the fourth quarter.
“This group is excited about the opportunity,” Leipold said. “They're excited about playing here. They're excited about senior day playing another ranked opponent. This group has kept its confidence for the most part all year.”
Leipold knew it would be a big day for Devin Neal
Neal had a huge day on his Senior Day, tallying 287 yards and four total touchdowns. Leipold said it was a fitting performance.
“For him to put together a game like this when we needed it, some of the runs after contact, big clutch plays as we're going through it were huge,” Leipold said. “He's truly a special back and you know, and fittingly so, I think for him to play his last home game, no matter where we're playing at the moment, for him to have that type of game really puts an exclamation point mark on his performance and career here.”
Kansas was without Daniel Hishaw, which meant it had to be a big day for Neal. The Jayhawks were able to rotate in Sevion Morrison, but the 37 carries were a career-high.
“We talked about it, that it'd be a big day for him [Neal], and I think that's why Jonathan Wallace, our running backs coach, was rotating Sevion as early as he did,” Leipold said. “I thought Sevion gave us some really nice runs as well, for him, because we knew it could come down to a heavy day of carries for Devin and [to] have 37 of them says a lot.”
Start to finish performance for the offense started in the trenches
Kansas turned in 331 rushing yards, which tied its season-high which came against Lindenwood. The Jayhawks were able to push around Colorado’s offensive line and averaged 5.8 yards per carry.
“We talked about it this week that for us to have a chance to win this game, we'd have to win at the line of scrimmage,” Leipold said. “And I thought we did today, both sides of the ball. We talked about being able to control the clock and being able to run it. I thought for us to rush for over 300, I think we had the ball for 40 minutes today, never punted. You know, it was truly a start-to-finish performance.”
Leipold gave credit to Jeff Grimes’ game plan. He said he mixed things up well and the players did a good job of executing.
However, it still wasn’t a perfect performance by the offense. Kansas had to settle for three field goals inside the 10-yard line during the first half. Leipold said they talked at halftime about being more aggressive and needing to execute in the red zone.
“We talked about being more aggressive and going for it on maybe some fourth downs,” Leipold said. “But, you know, I made that decision and I was determined that we’re going to at least keep a two-score lead at certain times. I thought that was important. I think all those drives kind of stalled inside the 10, so we got to better there. Obviously it can be a focal point of some work because you can't live that way very long and otherwise [it] eventually that catches up to you.”
Defense holds Colorado’s high-powered offense in check
Kansas held the Buffaloes to 21 points, the lowest they’ve scored during Big 12 play. Shedeur Sanders completed 23 of 29 passes, but the Jayhawks bottled up Colorado’s running game. Leipold said he thought the defense did a good job of limiting Colorado’s offensive output.
“I thought all in all, I thought our tackling on the outside was pretty good most of the day, which is important because they didn't throw the ball vertically down the field a ton, and a lot of it is taking what's given to them and then having people miss in space,” Leipold said. “And I thought we had a lot of people around the ball. I thought we played extremely hard and again neutralized the running game when they did attempt to run. So we kind of kept them in good down-and-distance situations that were predictable.”
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