Lance Leipold expects to be at Kansas for 'a long time'

Kansas has had one heck of a start to the 2022 football season, the second with head coach Lance Leipold leading the program. The Jayhawks are 5-0 and will host ESPN’s College GameDay this weekend in a matchup of unbeatens against TCU.

Leipold is the toast of the college football world right now, having done something few thought possible at a school predominantly known for its basketball prowess.

Can Kansas keep him around?

“To sit there and worry about being anywhere else than here is something that’s a waste of time because my wife and I, in our family, are extremely happy here and expect to be here a long time,” Leipold said in response to that very topic on Fox Sports Radio with Doug Gottlieb this week.

Leipold has certainly been patient in his coaching career, though his potential rise is certainly bordering on that zone where it can quickly turn meteoric.

Already at a Power 5 program, he’s sure to have some powerhouses chasing him in the near future. After all, five college programs have already fired their head coach in 2022.

Lance Leipold focused only on Kansas right now

Leipold, who came up through the coaching ranks primarily at DIII Wisconsin-Whitewater after playing quarterback there from 1983-86, knows a thing or two about patience.

He was a quarterbacks coach, a receivers coach and an assistant at various points at Wisconsin-Whitewater in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He returned as head coach in 2007 after various stints working small coaching gigs in the Midwest.

He served as head coach there until 2014, going 15-0 five times and winning six NCAA Division III national titles. All of that plays into Leipold saying he’s comfortable where he’s at right now.

“You know, there’s so much going on right now and I’ve said it said last week, I’ll say it again, is that we got to be where our feet are at,” Leipold told Gottlieb. “We’re extremely happy here. To even think a Division III coach — I think, if I’m correct, your father coached in Milwaukee there, UW-Milwaukee at one time, you know the state system a little bit and all that. To think that a small-town kid from Wisconsin would have a chance to be coaching in the Big 12 is kind of — I kind of have to pinch myself there.”

Kansas will attempt to keep the magic going this week against TCU in a game that kicks off at noon ET with a broadcast on FS1.

The Jayhawks have already won more games than in any season since former coach Mark Mangino‘s final year in charge, when Kansas went 5-7 in 2009. Kansas’ last winning season came in 2008, when the Jayhawks went 8-5.