91 Days Until Kansas Football: The feeling around Lance Leipold's Kansas Jayhawks is different.

The feeling this offseason is much different in the first full offseason under Lance Leipold, especially when compared to his predecessors.

It's a process that has been repeated multiple times in the last decade: A Kansas coach, fresh off his first season at the helm of the program, gets to show off the strides that have been made in the offseason. The acknowledgement of flaws that are still evident from spring practices are typically glossed over as the coach quickly shifts the blame to the previous coaches or players who have since left the program.

Turner Gill did it when talking about the need to change the culture and earn back the players trust. Charlie Weis did it with his "pile of crap" comments and his claim of providing the Jayhawks with a "decided schematic advantage". David Beaty did it when he blamed a large portion of the team's struggles on the scholarship deficit that he inherited from Weis. Les Miles did it when he talked about the scholarship deficit Beaty left him with and the need to re-energize the fanbase.

To be fair to each of those guys, the issues they faced were very real. The scholarship issues were not at all imagined. Each of the coaches did have to work with huge deficits that were left by their predecessor (except maybe Gill).

But those coaches all had one big thing in common: A confidence in their ability to get things turned around without sharing any details of what needed to be changed AND how they planned to accomplish it. Miles in particular seemed to operate under the assumption that his cachet would bring in better players and that the coaches would be able to develop them because of his previous success. But his inability to hold on to an offensive coordinator (he had 4 of them in less than 2 full years), ultimately hamstrung his offenses.

Leipold has been clear about how long it could take to see big results. That's not something that is unique to him, but this offseason feels different for one big reason: the staff is being upfront about the issues they are seeing, acknowledging both the work that has been put in already and how far they have to go, and demanding accountability through both the media and with his team privately.

In covering spring practices, it has been noted about how encouraged Leipold has been by the defensive progress, even while acknowledging how far they had to go (and still do to some extent). He talked early in spring practices about the individual development that needed to happen, and multiple players spoke to the level of development that was actually happening.

But the biggest thing that sealed the feeling for me was the interview of Lance Leipold at the end of the Spring Preview. When asked about how he felt his team did, he immediately acknowledged that they saw great progress but still had a long way to go. The coaches of the past would typically use that time to talk about all the positives and set a hopeful tone for the rest of the offseason work. Instead, Leipold prepared everyone for the further roster development that was going to happen, especially by way of the transfer portal.

Ultimately, one of my biggest gripes that came consistently when listening to previous coaches was the fact that none of them seemed willing to talk candidly about the gaps and flaws in their teams. While I don't expect them to give away program secrets to give opponents scouting advantages, I called Beaty out multiple times on the Rock Chalk Podcast for not even acknowledging that their was a schematic issue. The same thing happened with Miles, indicating that the players weren't executing but refusing to talk about the schematic shortfalls. 

Leipold has not only shown that he is willing to talk about them, but that he is actively working to address them in every way possible. And as we talked about on the podcast, that has to be something that gives you hope going into the season.