99 Days Until Kansas Football: Grading The First Half of On-Field Results in Year 1 of Lance Leipold

Part one of our series that evaluates the first year of the Lance Leipold tenure at Kansas.

Year 1 for the Kansas Jayhawks under head coach Lance Leipold was anything but ordinary. His hiring was made official on April 30th, 2021, just one day before the Spring Football game. This meant that he didn't get the benefit of any of those spring practices to start installing his system. There were no in-person evaluations of the players on the roster until the summer.

The prior coach left amid a scandal that was uncovered from his time at a prior school. The fallout led to the ousting of the athletic director as well. It's fair to say that despite the real feeling of tangible progress being made, the program was in turmoil. 

All of this is to say that when we evaluate Year 1 of the Lance Leipold era, it might be fair to grade on a bit of a curve. And as we get started in our countdown to Year 2, I think it's important to reset our understanding of what happened last season.

Contents

1. Week 1: vs South Dakota
2. Week 2: at Coastal Carolina
3. Week 3: vs Baylor
4. Week 4: at Duke
5. Week 5: at Iowa State
6. Week 6 vs Texas Tech

We'll be diving in to multiple aspects of his first season in Lawrence, including on-field results, recruiting results and the overall feeling surrounding the program. Today, we'll be grading the first half of last season on the field (finishing up tomorrow).

Week 1: vs South Dakota

Result: 17-14 Win

Jason Bean threw a touchdown pass to Lawrence Arnold at the end of each half, and the Jayhawks won a nailbiter to start the season with a win. The offense was inconsistent, showing the lack of reps in the offseason.

The defense was able to keep South Dakota off the board in the first half, but two touchdown drives in the second half had the game in doubt much later than one would typically expect.

But, it was a win to start the Leipold tenure, and given the difficulties mentioned in the intro, I can't be too harsh with my grade.

Grade: B-

Week 2: at Coastal Carolina

Result: 49-22 Loss

Lots of people will look at the final score and just assume that Kansas got stomped from start to finish. The Chanticleers were ranked coming into the game and had beaten the Jayhawks the previous two seasons.

But after going into halftime down by 13, the Jayhawks put together a quick drive to pull back within a single score before failing to finish drives the rest of the night.

Sure the final score was lopsided. But there were no expectations that the Jayhawks were going to be able to stop a loaded Chanticleer offense. And while they couldn't finish many drives in the second half, they were able to move the ball much better than many thought possible. Once again, we are grading on a curve, but it's hard not to feel good about this game overall.

Grade: B

Week 3: vs Baylor

Result: 45-7 Loss

If you are looking for something positive to take out of this one, it's that the defense hung tough for a half. They gave up one touchdown in each of the first two quarters, but they forced a turnover on a long drive to limit the damage.

However, the offense was never really able to get going in this one, and the defense disappeared in the second half. The curve helps a little bit, as does the fact that this was a REALLY good Baylor team, but I can only give a certain amount of generosity.

Grade: D-

Week 4: at Duke

Result: 52-33 Loss

The defense forced two turnovers in the 1st quarter before trading touchdowns back and forth in a 35-point 2nd quarter. But five straight scoring drives for the Blue Devils and two turnovers for the Jayhawks doomed them to another road loss.

Sure the offense showed some life, and the defense did enough to give fans some hope, but the overall grade couldn't get too high for this one.

Grade: C

Week 5: at Iowa State

Result: 59-7 Loss 

I actually attended this game, and the combination of the rain and the absolute ineptitude of the Jayhawks on both sides of the ball ruined an otherwise awesome experience.

Did I realistically expect Kansas to compete in this game? Not really. But was this performance much worse than I expected? Absolutely.

Grade: F

Week 6 vs Texas Tech

Result: 41-14 Loss

This might actually be the most disappointing game of the first half of the season, which is saying a lot after the prior loss. But the combination of a 38-0 deficit going into the 4th quarter, the firing of Matt Wells the next week, and the fact this came on both Homecoming and after a bye week made this loss especially painful.

Grade: F-

We'll finish up with the second half of the schedule and an overall grade tomorrow.

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