The Kansas coaches open their practices for high school coaches who want to visit. On Saturday they had a good group attending practice because it was a Junior Day event.

One of the coaches watching practice that day was Steve Rampy from Staley High School. His offensive lineman Tyler Kerkhoff was taking an unofficial visit.

Rampy is one of the most recognizable names among local coaches in recent history.

He has seen a lot of practices at all levels and came away impressed with the Jayhawks. One of the segments of practice offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki calls Class on the Grass.

“I've had the pleasure of being at NFL practices and a lot of Big 12 practices at various places and college practices at all levels,” Rampy said. “But that was without a doubt the most organized from the time the Class on the Grass, which I think is an unbelievably great name started.”

From the minute practice started Rampy said the players knew what they were supposed to be doing.

“Every single second was orchestrated, and the kids knew where to be,” he said. “A lot of people have adopted this practice. Football is such a compartmentalized game that you have to go from one thing to the next, turnovers, and jump from offense to defense and special teams. The days of going into a period and practicing doing something for 30 minutes is long gone. But what they did was just keeping those kids moving and jumping into drills right away and being full speed, and their support staff is so good too.”

Two things that stood out to Rampy was the structure of the practice and how the coaches kept the players engaged from start to finish.

“The organization, first of all, was a thing that just was overwhelming,” Rampy said. “Second thing was enthusiasm by all the coaches. I mean, you have to coach on the run when you coach, when you do practice like this, and so you don't sometimes get a chance to reinforce what's going on, but their staff was. I just felt the level of effort. And the players were helping each other.”

Rampy took Blue Valley to eight state championships winning four titles. His next stop was Pittsburg State as the offensive coordinator where he helped guide the Gorillas to a national championship. Rampy moved back to the high school ranks at Lawrence High where he coached Kansas players Devin Neal and Cole Mondi.

Two years ago, he accepted the job at Staley, one of the top programs in the Kansas City area. He has met Lance Leipold before at coaching clinics and when he signed Neal coming out of Lawrence High. Rampy spoke with Leipold at Saturday's practice. He has been around the area and watched all of the good programs.

“He's a great man,” Rampy said of Leipold. “He just reminds you so much of what Coach Snyder did at K-State, because he does everything with high integrity and does it the right way and brought his staff in. Bill Snyder's one of the great coaches in my lifetime. What he did and what he built at K-State was incredible, and I see a lot of similarities in those two guys.”