Kansas head coach Lance Leipold calls the Jayhawks' 2021 victory in Austin "old news"
The University of Texas is set to face its stiffest competition at home this Saturday as No. 24 Kansas heads to Austin. Similar to Texas and Steve Sarkisian, Kansas is 4-0 in head coach Lance Leipold‘s third year at the helm.
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While many want to reflect on the 2021 game at DKR, neither Sarkisian nor Leipold have any interest in looking backwards.
Said Sarkisian at his Monday press conference:
“We’ve come a long way as a program in a lot of phases: schematically, the roster, the culture, the environment at DKR,” Sarkisian said. “We don’t have to go backwards. We’re going to keep forging forward. We’ve got a lot of goals that we’re trying to obtain this year and we’re trying to reach.
“We recognize Kansas is a good football team, but to try make our guys feel bad for losing a game two years ago that sucked for everybody, I don’t know what benefit that has. We’ve got to focus on the task at hand, and that’s playing this Kansas team because this Kansas team is a lot different than that Kansas team two years ago as well.”
Leipold also met with media on Monday. Below are some snippets regarding Texas from his press conference:
Q: When someone mentions that 2021 game in Texas what’s the first thing you think about?
[Halfway through the question a slightly perturbed Leipold was shaking his head]
A: Old news. Doesn’t matter. Both teams are significantly better and it’s honestly so far in the past we gotta keep moving. Yeah it helped this program, it helped our players, but we can’t [long pause] yeah, that’s about it.
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[But that wasn’t it]
Q: When you look at the tape what stands out about Texas now?
A: I guess I’ll add to that (previous question), I hope it’s the last time I have to answer that question this week, honestly. I do. I really want to focus on our team now and where we’re going because that’s what’s important. It’s an excellent football team across the board. You can tell from Coach Sarkisian the stamp he’s put on it offensively. He’s one of the best play callers in the country. The movements and shifts and different looks that he gives, how they spread the ball among the play makers that they have, huge up front and very athletic, well coached offensive line. And then defensively a front that, again, I think that’s a group from if you are going to keep looking at our previous meetings I that the defensive line continued improvement for them and consistency — maybe not improvement but just consistent play — and physical. tough kids. Linebackers who are extremely physical and run well. It’s definitely a different team and a huge challenge for us and one that we’ve gotta have our best week of preparation yet.
Q: You look at a quarterback the caliber of Quinn (Ewers), what goes into preparing for a quarterback like him?
A: [He looks a little uneasy] I thought we played an excellent quarterback this last week, too (BYU’s Kedon Slovis). He is an excellent quarterback (Ewers), he’s going to be a high draft pick. It’s the weapons as well, so disrupting, keeping him out of a rhythm, getting him in longer down and distance. That’s the huge challenge. I think we’ve talked and we’ve gotten some recognition or compliments on our diversity of our offense and how we spread it around, well, they do it as good as anybody as well. When you look at the people that get touches and how they do it and some of the stuff they’re doing off of it. Trying to keep them off rhythm is going to be very important.
It’s somewhat remarkable how far Kansas has come in a short period of time. Context tells us that’s a difficult job to succeed at, especially when you’re building from the ground up. But thanks to an innovative offense with quality skill players, Kansas is able to keep advancing the program as the coaches continue to improve the trenches and defense.
Texas is currently a 17.5 point favorite for the 2:30 p.m. kick.
