Kansas football coach Lance Leipold outlines thoughts before opener
Check out everything Kansas football coach Lance Leipold had to say Thursday as the Jayhawks continued to progress toward their 2025 fall opener.
LAWRENCE — Ahead of Kansas football games for the upcoming 2025 season, the school will be required to provide availability reports for Big 12 Conference games.
The Big 12 released the news Wednesday, and connected it to men’s and women’s basketball teams as well. Regarding football, the final report will come 90 minutes before kickoff. Preceding that, there will be daily reports that come out starting three days before each game.
But does KU football coach Lance Leipold support these reports, which are going to be detailed at Big12Sports.com? With football, there’ll be designations of being available, probable, questionable, doubtful, or out.
Here’s what he had to say Thursday:
“We talked about it in our meetings in late May; we knew it was kind of going there,” Leipold said. “We talked about some different thoughts on when and what categories. I haven’t seen the final one yet of how it’s going to be labeled. We know why it’s being done, for the other impact of things that happen in this country and worldwide. So, it’s there. As long as it’s balanced for everyone, and where it’s at, I think it’ll be — it’ll work out fine.”
When Leipold alluded to why people know why it’s happening, he later clarified that he does mean sports gambling. Moving past that, two things that are on his mind are ensuring the system they put in place is used correctly and what the consequences could be for it being done incorrectly. He recalled how close the timing was to kickoff back in 2023, when it became clear the day of the game, quarterback Jalon Daniels couldn’t play, and how Kansas’ listing of Daniels’ status would have been evaluated.
The Jayhawks open their 2025 season with three-straight non-conference games, two at home against Fresno State (Aug. 23) and Wagner (Aug. 29), and one on the road against Missouri (Sept. 6). Big 12 play is set to begin with a Sept. 20 home game against West Virginia. Eight more conference games follow that matchup as the regular season plays out.
Speaking generally, KU redshirt senior offensive lineman Kobe Baynes acknowledged the way the sport has been going would lead to a decision like this from the Big 12 — which follows the likes of the Big Ten Conference and Southeastern Conference in this regard. He pointed to an example from the 2024 season, although he didn’t go into too many specifics, where his team expected one thing about an opponent that turned out to be different come game day.
Time will tell what this all means for the Big 12 this fall.
“I think the league is doing a really good job of just trying to get everything fair for the game,” Baynes said. “And so, I’m excited for that.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.