The steel girders that are rising around the Anderson Family Football Complex, which No. 22 Kansas calls home, along with the buzz of hard-hatted construction workers have made the start to this season anything but normal for the Jayhawks.
That will be underscored on Thursday night, when they head down Interstate 70 to Children's Mercy Park to play Lindenwood, the first of two nonconference games that the Jayhawks will play at the home of Major League Soccer club Sporting Kansas City.
Yet there is something sensical about the fact that Kansas in the midst of rebuilding its stadium from the ground up, given that is exactly what Lance Leipold has done to the program since he was hired as the coach three seasons ago. What was once a downtrodden laughing-stock has become a power in the new-look Big 12, one with legitimate aspirations of playing in the College Football Playoff.
With quarterback Jalon Daniels healthy again, running back Devin Neal aiming for the school rushing record and every top wideout back, the Jayhawks have plenty of reasons to believe they can build on a nine-win season that ended with a bowl victory over UNLV.
“I really like this football team. I like its maturity. I like the way it's gone about camp,” Leipold said. “All the kinds of things we put them through with the (construction) project, they've handled it well. I guess they've developed a workmanlike attitude through this, a professional way of approaching things in a day-to-day manner.”
They only recently were able to use their football complex again. Their practice routine has been disrupted. And along with the games at Children's Mercy Park, the Jayhawks will play four home conference games at Arrowhead Stadium.
Yes, for four days only, Kansas will be calling Missouri home.
But up first is Lindenwood, a Championship Subdivision team from — coincidentally — Missouri that only recently made the jump to that level. The Lions have never played an opponent from the Bowl Subdivision.
“You can't give just rah-rah speeches all summer and all fall camp, and tell the David-and-Goliath stories,” Lindenwood coach Jed Stugart said. “You've got to know those are irrelevant. You’ve got to play.”
The Jayhawks only had Daniels for three games last season because of a back injury. But the dual-threat star made it through fall camp without any problems and will be ready for the opener. In the games he did play last year, Daniels completed nearly 75% of his throws for 705 yards with five touchdown passes and only one interception.
Kansas returns its four leading wide receivers in Lawrence Arnold, Luke Grimm, Quentin Skinner and Trevor Wilson, a rarity in the era of the transfer portal. The quartet combined to catch 117 passes for 2,119 yards and 16 touchdowns. That includes their bowl game, where Arnold caught six passes for 132 yards and Grimm had four for 160.
Neal put off the NFL draft for another season with the Jayhawks, and now the hometown hero is setting his sights on the school's career rushing record. Neal has 3,077 yards and needs just 765 more to the mark June Henley's set in 1996.
After losing offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki to Penn State, the Jayhawks hired Jeff Grimes to be their assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. He has coached at several high-profile schools, including Auburn, LSU and Baylor.
Stugart turned Sioux Falls into an NAIA power before taking it to the Division II level and reaching the playoffs, so he has plenty of experience in taking programs to a new level. But the jump to Division I has been tough on Lindenwood, which won just three games and finished last in the Big South–OVC Football Association last season.
“I think this year we do feel like we are a deeper team,” Stugart said. "They’re handling some more of their own business that we felt like we had to kind of guide them through last year.”
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