Speaker 1: Hey, what welcome in. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is All
Speaker 1: Ball part two of Lansleie pulled up coming if you
Speaker 1: heard part one. If you didn't, it's amazing. But this
Speaker 1: is you know, how he transitioned to Kansas football and
Speaker 1: how you build something from nothing and now they've got
Speaker 1: a stadium and how you sustain it. I think you'll
Speaker 1: you'll love it. Uh, And that's our challenge, right, that's
Speaker 1: our challenge at Green Bay. Obviously, our season finished record wise,
Speaker 1: not the way we wanted. But I think everybody who
Speaker 1: watches like, wow, you guys really got them playing hard
Speaker 1: and you were onto something late in the year. And
Speaker 1: there's lots of things we learned, and I think I'll
Speaker 1: share them and I'll start to share them in the
Speaker 1: next spot. But I will give you one, which is
Speaker 1: players respond when there are players around them that all
Speaker 1: want to be there, you know that all want to
Speaker 1: be there. And it's one of the things we're going
Speaker 1: through here in terms of, you know, the portal. Not
Speaker 1: every kid that enters the portal wants to enter the portal,
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, sometimes it is their choice
Speaker 1: and you don't want them to. But I think that
Speaker 1: the one commonality for teams that are still playing and
Speaker 1: playing well in the NCA tournament, playing well in their
Speaker 1: conference tournament is they have a high high percentage if
Speaker 1: not all of the guys all in on the present, day,
Speaker 1: the current and on. They want to be there, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's a hard thing to determine, like do you
Speaker 1: want to be here?
Speaker 2: Do you not?
Speaker 1: But you set standards, you hold them to them, and
Speaker 1: the once you get a group and it could be
Speaker 1: five guys, it could be seven guys, eight, it could
Speaker 1: be hopefully twelve guys or whatever that all want to
Speaker 1: be part of it, want to do it and do
Speaker 1: it the right way, you end up getting more production
Speaker 1: even with less talent than you ever thought possible. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yes, do the most talented teams work, sure,
Speaker 1: but they have to be teams and it's the most
Speaker 1: talent did actual teams that work, not just the most
Speaker 1: talented guys that work. I'm sure Lance Leopold knows that.
Speaker 1: So let's get to part two, our interview with the
Speaker 1: Kansas head coach LANs.
Speaker 3: Be sure to catch live editions of The Doug Gottlieb
Speaker 3: Show weekdays at three pm Eastern noon Pacific on Fox
Speaker 3: Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio appen.
Speaker 1: When you're too intent. The great thing about you being
Speaker 1: too intent was you had one big at Whitewater. So
Speaker 1: it's not like you don't know what you're doing. You
Speaker 1: don't know the template, you don't have the resume for it.
Speaker 1: But you also have to evaluate, Okay, we got to
Speaker 1: change some things. How do you How do you personally
Speaker 1: do it? Do you do you take notes? Do you
Speaker 1: do individual meetings? Do you like again, and I'm not
Speaker 1: talking just coaching, I'm not talking just players, staff as well,
Speaker 1: and yourself self evaluation? How did you how did you
Speaker 1: kind of self scout in order to get the program
Speaker 1: back in the right direction?
Speaker 2: Well, a couple of different ways there. I think you know.
Speaker 2: One of the things you know when things aren't going well.
Speaker 2: You know, as head coaches, it's kind of like playing quarterback.
Speaker 2: You get way too much credit when things are going well,
Speaker 2: and you probably get to take too much criticism when
Speaker 2: things aren't because the buck stops with you. But a
Speaker 2: lot of times I'll try to I'll put it in
Speaker 2: a staff meeting. What can I do better for you guys?
Speaker 2: What am I not doing enough? I'll put it out there.
Speaker 2: Let the assistant coaches give you feedback of where we
Speaker 2: can need. The one thing that I think we've done
Speaker 2: a good job wherever we've been is I think our
Speaker 2: structure and discipline has been solid wherever we've been. So
Speaker 2: expectations and the standard is the standard for us, so
Speaker 2: that we're not going to compromise. We're not going to
Speaker 2: compromise on effort levels and timeliness and all the little
Speaker 2: things that we know that can be a difference down
Speaker 2: the road. And as long as we're consistent in those ways,
Speaker 2: the young men in the program are going to make
Speaker 2: a decision if they're going to buy in or not,
Speaker 2: and if not, they're you know, they then usually they
Speaker 2: move on. But again there's you know, you get people
Speaker 2: second guessing, whether it be yourself or the staff or
Speaker 2: the scheme and everything that you're doing. But again, when
Speaker 2: we looked at we're a pretty young football team, we
Speaker 2: liked what we had coming back. We were playing hard
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. We knew where we were deficient,
Speaker 2: and we found ways to try to improve upon it,
Speaker 2: you know, through ourselves, scouting and a lot of different things.
Speaker 2: Andy cold Nicky was our offensive coordinator, was now at
Speaker 2: Penn State. I remember one of the things he went
Speaker 2: through and did a study, and one of the things
Speaker 2: was sometimes when you're a younger football team, you're trying
Speaker 2: not to get beat and you're trying to keep games
Speaker 2: close and get him in the fourth quarter, and you're
Speaker 2: doing things. But one of the things that we found
Speaker 2: out we didn't do was we didn't take enough shots
Speaker 2: down field and to throw the ball down the field
Speaker 2: and a lot of times instead of trying to drive
Speaker 2: the ball for fifty yards, you need to try to
Speaker 2: throw one and either get an interference call or come
Speaker 2: down with a fifty to fifty ball and the next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, and we made that a high point of
Speaker 2: emphasis the next season and it started play dividends for us.
Speaker 2: And again we've gone through I say this in our
Speaker 2: I had three athletic directors in six years at Buffalo,
Speaker 2: and I had five strength coaches in six years, and
Speaker 2: we still ended up our last four years winning the
Speaker 2: most games over a four year period than any other school. So,
Speaker 2: as you know, it's got to be the continuity of
Speaker 2: everybody who are some of the people that help you
Speaker 2: you're athletic director in what you're doing anytime there's a
Speaker 2: change in athletic director, there's always that pause because a
Speaker 2: new person is going to survey the situation before they
Speaker 2: jump in and do anything. Your strength coach, you're trying
Speaker 2: to build consistency in your weight program. And again, but
Speaker 2: the fortunate part is a lot of the guys that
Speaker 2: were with me in Whitewater and other places, we're able
Speaker 2: to keep a good nucleus of coaches and we didn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of guys jump ship that way, and
Speaker 2: I think that helped us.
Speaker 1: Your last year there was the COVID year.
Speaker 2: Yes, well what was that like? It was crazy? Again,
Speaker 2: you know, some of it gets to be a blur,
Speaker 2: but you know, you know, if you remember in COVID
Speaker 2: and you remember the state of New York and what
Speaker 2: it was like in that where there was daily press
Speaker 2: conferences and from the governor and all these things of
Speaker 2: everything being really shut down, and what you could do.
Speaker 2: I thought our strength coach and our and our medical
Speaker 2: people came up with a good way that we could.
Speaker 2: We moved some weight room stuff to the open concourse
Speaker 2: of the stadium, so we had open airlifting. We've tried
Speaker 2: to find a way to keep going. We didn't get started.
Speaker 2: We played a six game regular season and a five
Speaker 2: game regular season and a conference championship game that we
Speaker 2: came up short against Ball State, and then we won
Speaker 2: a bowl game. But we found a game. We found
Speaker 2: a way to win games. We played well. Probably the
Speaker 2: benefit was we didn't we didn't play non conference games
Speaker 2: were supposed to be Kansas State and Ohio State that year,
Speaker 2: so that probably helped us a little bit. But I
Speaker 2: remember that, you know, you're going through all the testing.
Speaker 2: We're testing three times a week with our guys and waves,
Speaker 2: and then you wait for the results and you're holding
Speaker 2: your breath. You got enough guys, and we're going down
Speaker 2: to play Coach Solizer's Ohio team, and we just got
Speaker 2: done with with our meetings and walk through stuff and
Speaker 2: we're gonna get on the bus. And they came up
Speaker 2: to me and said, hey, you may want to have
Speaker 2: to wait. Ohio's got some positive guys in the games
Speaker 2: in Jeopardy, and I'm like, I can't tell the guys
Speaker 2: that we may not play the game because mentally, then
Speaker 2: guys are either gonna be disappointed or they're going to
Speaker 2: check out. And then we've got to try to get
Speaker 2: them back mentally ready to play. I said, we're going,
Speaker 2: and so we got on the bus and we started going,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna stop at a rest stop and grab
Speaker 2: sandwiches that we had ordered from someplace. And I got
Speaker 2: a call about an hour before we even got to
Speaker 2: the rest stop that the game was canceled. So we
Speaker 2: had to start and go through it all, go give
Speaker 2: them their sandwiches, and then call them up and call
Speaker 2: them all up and say, hey, bring it in here.
Speaker 2: A game got canceled. We're heading back home, and stuff
Speaker 2: that you never even think about these days. And in
Speaker 2: all all the all the ways that you would try
Speaker 2: to find a way to play a game, they would
Speaker 2: you know, contact tracing and stuff like that. They would
Speaker 2: try to, uh, they would have a stop watch about
Speaker 2: how many seconds each guy was lined up against a
Speaker 2: guy that was that was possibly uh you know positive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just just the thing that you're trying to do just
Speaker 2: to get the game played is it was crazy. Uh.
Speaker 1: Is there any part of you that misses the bussing
Speaker 1: to games because now you only bust the K State.
Speaker 2: We bust the Kick State and Iowa State. But you know, honestly,
Speaker 2: Doug and the fact that my body's getting old, and
Speaker 2: I don't My back's a little more sore after riding
Speaker 2: those buses. I do believe that there's something about bus
Speaker 2: trips that I will miss. I I look at it
Speaker 2: as you know, we would at Whitewater. We had ones
Speaker 2: all the way out to New Jersey. We we we
Speaker 2: played Buffalo State in Buffalo, we played Dickinson, North Dakota.
Speaker 2: I think they're good team building. I think they they
Speaker 2: it's a I don't know if it's a badge of
Speaker 2: honor or what it is, but I do think there's
Speaker 2: something about it that, as we said earlier, when people
Speaker 2: want to get into coaching, I do think everyone needs
Speaker 2: an extended bus trip once in their career.
Speaker 1: No question. And to unload the bags. You're a little
Speaker 1: man on the tone bowl. Yeah, unload the bags as well,
Speaker 1: you know, right.
Speaker 2: And we always say there's that, you know, as a
Speaker 2: as a head coach or whatever, hopefully you don't ask
Speaker 2: somebody to do something that you haven't done yourself somewhere
Speaker 2: along the line and you're still not willing to do.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. They the guys, my guys are always on me,
Speaker 1: my assistant coach as so as I coach, you don't
Speaker 1: have to get the bags. And I was like, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I haven't necessary. I haven't been
Speaker 1: doing this long enough to have somebody else get my back.
Speaker 1: So I get the front seat. That's the only thing
Speaker 1: I get, you know. And if I want to stop
Speaker 1: for coffee, damn it, we stopped for coffee. Outside of that,
Speaker 1: I'm just like any other any other smow you know,
Speaker 1: only I'm not on my I can't tell them to
Speaker 1: not be on their phones and be on my phone myself.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So Kansas had won nine games in six years, nine
Speaker 1: in six years, right, no facilities, And the m O was,
Speaker 1: they don't care as long as basketball is winning championships,
Speaker 1: and they won a gajillion big toll champions in row,
Speaker 1: they don't care. Right, there's not enough in state players
Speaker 1: at the time you got ou in Texas in the league. Heck,
Speaker 1: even Oklahoma State in terms of funding, like just you
Speaker 1: don't have a Boon Pickens to give a couple hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars. Why why would you take on that challenge?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, part of it was some of the
Speaker 2: same things that you know, try to build something that
Speaker 2: hadn't been done. I had. I had some opportunities that
Speaker 2: I thought that we're going to play out earlier in
Speaker 2: the job cycle. And it was kind of one of
Speaker 2: those who were getting close my wife, who's a great
Speaker 2: reader of of of me that year before, like when
Speaker 2: that COVID year, we ended up ranked twenty fifth in
Speaker 2: the country in the final AP poll, and we had
Speaker 2: a really good nucleus of players coming back. But I
Speaker 2: came home once in February because this job opened really
Speaker 2: late in the cycle. And but she said to me,
Speaker 2: she goes, I think next year should be your last
Speaker 2: year here. We need you need to look And I said, why,
Speaker 2: she goes, you seem bored. You know, we had gotten
Speaker 2: some facilities done. We got an indoor, we redid the
Speaker 2: locker room, we got some things going. We built a
Speaker 2: new a feeling station, things like that, and we had
Speaker 2: gone from some of the worst facilities in Buffalo to
Speaker 2: some of the better ones. And it was like some
Speaker 2: of the things that I really take out as challenges
Speaker 2: and and and then we had become a player led program,
Speaker 2: doug and the things that you really try to strive for.
Speaker 2: And and I was like, you know, maybe she's right,
Speaker 2: And and I thought, you know, you go to a
Speaker 2: place like Kansas is you know, you can do something
Speaker 2: that maybe others haven't done, you know. And I had
Speaker 2: mentioned Barry Alvarez before, and Barry's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: Barry said he never left Wisconsin was much like Hayden
Speaker 2: Fry never left Iowa. You have a chance to do
Speaker 2: something consistently that has never been done at that school.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, I'm at an
Speaker 2: age and a point of my career. If I'm ever
Speaker 2: going to get a Power five job, this may be
Speaker 2: the one, and let's take a swing at it. And
Speaker 2: if you don't, if it doesn't work out, you end
Speaker 2: up being just like the four or five before you.
Speaker 2: And if you have a chance to get it going,
Speaker 2: you can do something special for a place.
Speaker 1: Year one, you open up with South Dakota and you
Speaker 1: get a win, and then you play Coastal Carolina.
Speaker 2: By the way, Doug, they stormed in the field after
Speaker 2: we beat South Dakota.
Speaker 1: That's right, I forgot about that. What was that?
Speaker 2: Like? Well, we had to come back to win, and
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I said, Unfortunately, God blessed
Speaker 2: the kids that stuck around and worked hard. Here I said,
Speaker 2: we were too and ten that year. I said, but
Speaker 2: we might have been. We might have been oh to
Speaker 2: twelve on the eyeball test in pregame warm ups. Just
Speaker 2: that it was. It was tough, it was, but you know,
Speaker 2: we missed springball here. We didn't really know what we
Speaker 2: had were We're trying to get kids to build, you know,
Speaker 2: buy into our way of doing it, but getting a win.
Speaker 2: But he said, but I know you're going to talk
Speaker 2: about Coastal Carolina and that was a good Coastal team
Speaker 2: and they got after us on the road.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just gonna the balance of that, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden's Coastal and You're like, oh uh
Speaker 1: oh uh oh.
Speaker 2: I questioned, why were we going to Coastal even play?
Speaker 2: First of all, you know, what are you know, those
Speaker 2: are things that you're.
Speaker 1: You did you have the conversation because I had one
Speaker 1: of these conversations like after you lose a game which
Speaker 1: you knew you shouldn't have been scheduled, but it was
Speaker 1: out of your control. You said, Okay, just so we're aware,
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't want to play this game. We
Speaker 1: didn't play this game. So from this point forward, I
Speaker 1: get the yeah, I'm taking the l's I get to
Speaker 1: I get the schedule.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like if you're going to play those
Speaker 2: those need to just be home games and things. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's what it is, and you learn that,
Speaker 2: you learn from it and go. But yeah, there's there's
Speaker 2: a lot more saying scheduling.
Speaker 1: Now during the losing, because you lost I think seven
Speaker 1: or eight in a row.
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 1: But you had been through it before at Buffalo. But
Speaker 1: what was it like at the Kansas level where you're
Speaker 1: walking in the stadium's not right. You know, you're trying
Speaker 1: to do something that hasn't been done. What are those
Speaker 1: feelings like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can remember like the Baylor game and you
Speaker 2: made something in front of you. I don't remember the score,
Speaker 2: but I remember we were down like three scores at
Speaker 2: halftime and and you walked into a locker room and
Speaker 2: they were they were done. They are the confidence level
Speaker 2: of our team and and and and not like blank, it.
Speaker 1: Was only fourteen to seven at half.
Speaker 2: Wasn't okay? But they're but they're but it was maybe
Speaker 2: I'm missing another game there where it was like and.
Speaker 1: Half No, I know, listen, I know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 2: About you know, they've gone through it so many times,
Speaker 2: and you're like, Okay, how are we going to break
Speaker 2: this cycle? And it's chipping away with confidence and finding
Speaker 2: ways to work evic and and if you have unwavering
Speaker 2: belief in the process, it's going to pay you back
Speaker 2: and you keep working. But there were some times where
Speaker 2: you looked at it and you could just see it
Speaker 2: the the here we go again type things. One of
Speaker 2: the things that we were able to start doing though,
Speaker 2: is we we told it. We moved to a morning
Speaker 2: practice philosophy from an afternoon. They had had really long
Speaker 2: practices with the previous staff. We had shorter practices. We
Speaker 2: moved faster, We got in, we did our work, We
Speaker 2: did what we said we were going to do, and
Speaker 2: we started to build trust with them by by acting
Speaker 2: out and the kids started to trust us, and we
Speaker 2: slowly got better.
Speaker 4: But to be Texas and it was wild. What do
Speaker 4: you remember about the game? Well, I remember we got
Speaker 4: up big and it was like, okay, here we go.
Speaker 4: Then all of a sudden you could feel in the
Speaker 4: fourth quarter, here they're coming. They're getting it together. So
Speaker 4: then they tie it up and it goes into overtime.
Speaker 2: And and we won the toss and went on defense,
Speaker 2: and I and I told, I told our offensive coordinator,
Speaker 2: Andy cole Nikki. I said, Andy, if I said, if
Speaker 2: they score, we're gonna if we score, we're going for
Speaker 2: two right away. We're not going to keep playing this out.
Speaker 2: And he goes, I have a play, so it's sure enough,
Speaker 2: you know, it goes in there. And then a walk
Speaker 2: on tight end who who the only reason why is
Speaker 2: in a game because the third string walk on that
Speaker 2: was ahead of them broke his broke his foot and
Speaker 2: walked throughs on Thursday. So he jumps in and plays
Speaker 2: and catches and catches the game winning two point conversion
Speaker 2: and it and it really propelled us into some leaf
Speaker 2: and confidence. We didn't win the last two games, but
Speaker 2: we played a lot better. And and the way I
Speaker 2: looked at that season after after it was done, Doug
Speaker 2: was August. August was our spring ball because we didn't
Speaker 2: get one. September was our fall camp. October was our
Speaker 2: our beginning of the season, and and November ended up
Speaker 2: being a kind of our mid year where we started
Speaker 2: to improve. And when we left the field after losing
Speaker 2: our last two even the TCU and West Virginia in
Speaker 2: close games. We were at a we were at a
Speaker 2: new confidence level of belief that this program could win games.
Speaker 2: Heading into the twenty two sues.
Speaker 1: In twenty three, you kind of started out it was,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's obviously your signature year. You won your
Speaker 1: first four did you know, I mean nine wins in
Speaker 1: the Big twelve is Jake hint? Did you know going
Speaker 1: into the year you had some pession.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had enough coming back that we thought we
Speaker 2: could be good. You know, we had lost Jalen Daniels,
Speaker 2: our quarterback year before when we started five in all,
Speaker 2: its kind of like what you're saying about looking at
Speaker 2: looking at the crowd of share with our strength coach.
Speaker 2: We played we played Duke there in twenty two and
Speaker 2: it was sold out, and you know in football sometimes
Speaker 2: in a month maybe like in basketball as well as that,
Speaker 2: when you go in after warm ups and then you
Speaker 2: come back out and it's full, you kind of get
Speaker 2: a different feel. And the strength coach came up to me,
Speaker 2: he goes, can you believe we got him here this quick?
Speaker 2: And so the twenty two season went well. Twenty three,
Speaker 2: we you know, Jalen had gotten hurt. He came back
Speaker 2: and played. We we play ours on the bowl game,
Speaker 2: but we had enough snaps of returning players going into
Speaker 2: twenty three, we thought we could be a very competitive foot.
Speaker 1: Let me pause for a second. How did you get
Speaker 1: Jayleen'd begin?
Speaker 2: He was committed here before we got here. He the
Speaker 2: previous staff signed him and brought him in, and he
Speaker 2: played as a true freshman in the COVID season and
Speaker 2: got sacked ten times against Oklahoma. The young man is outstanding.
Speaker 2: Is back to that Texas win. We were going to
Speaker 2: red shirt him then, and I said, but our two
Speaker 2: other quarterbacks had gotten hurt. I said, Jalen. I said, well,
Speaker 2: here we are. We're two and eight at the time,
Speaker 2: and I said, we said we're going to red shirt you.
Speaker 2: What do you want to do? He said, I'll do
Speaker 2: anything you want, coach, whatever's best for the team. Most
Speaker 2: guys today are going to check out and and say
Speaker 2: back their year. And he has been amazing. He's he
Speaker 2: believes in us, he's he hasn't wavered about leaving, and
Speaker 2: now he's back for a sixth year. We're excited about him.
Speaker 2: But you know, in twenty two, kind of jumping between
Speaker 2: years here for you. Twenty two we had college game
Speaker 2: Day and in twenty three we had big Noon here
Speaker 2: and you know those were those were big moments for
Speaker 2: this for this program and really for this university.
Speaker 1: Last year was did not go as expected. Now part
Speaker 1: of it is I think it was good. It was good,
Speaker 1: but it's hard. Sometimes getting those guys back is hard,
Speaker 1: you know, like a Jalen when everybody you get huge
Speaker 1: expectations as opposed to previously where they were lower expectations.
Speaker 1: If you could go back for this last year, what
Speaker 1: would you do differently?
Speaker 2: You know, I probably wasn't as hard as I as
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be on the details.
Speaker 2: You know, I go, we got a good experience group.
Speaker 2: They understand what we're doing, They're going to go through it,
Speaker 2: they're doing it. I don't want to say we were complacent,
Speaker 2: but I don't think we had the edge. And again
Speaker 2: I kind of have references back to other parts of
Speaker 2: my career, Doug Is. I remember after leaving Wisconsin after
Speaker 2: my graduate assistant days and I came back and I
Speaker 2: think they were like five and six the next year,
Speaker 2: and I asked the strength coach, who was a friend
Speaker 2: of mine, what's the difference. He goes, they don't understand
Speaker 2: that they're now the hunted instead of the hunters. And
Speaker 2: I think the same thing happened to us a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think there were some times in twenty two and
Speaker 2: twenty three I think it was it's still Kansas and
Speaker 2: we're able to play to a level that sort now.
Speaker 2: People you know, I know Illinois put a lot of
Speaker 2: emphasis on after we've beaten them here, and they turned
Speaker 2: out to be a very good football team. UNLB was
Speaker 2: a good football team. We could not play our best
Speaker 2: when our best was needed, and I don't think we
Speaker 2: totally respected the fact how people were approaching us differently.
Speaker 1: How do you handle the idea that, if you're honest
Speaker 1: and you look at it, six wins at Kansas is
Speaker 1: the hell of a year for you. It's not your
Speaker 1: personal expectations. Your personal standard is much high than that.
Speaker 1: But in totality, in comparison to Kansas football the last
Speaker 1: fifty years, especially in the Big Twelve, with the financial disparity,
Speaker 1: with the regional recruiting, all these different things, how do
Speaker 1: you push through the idea that the common fan looks
Speaker 1: at or even the common coach just like, Hey, if
Speaker 1: you can win six or seven year at KU. You're
Speaker 1: doing a hell of a job. How do you handle that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, you can't compromise your expectations. I don't think
Speaker 2: any of us, if we're competitors, go out there hoping
Speaker 2: to play games close. There's no moral victories, you know.
Speaker 2: I said that first year we played Oklahoma really close,
Speaker 2: and they made an announcement on social media that at
Speaker 2: halftime that everybody could come into the game free. And
Speaker 2: I remember and Caleb Williams took the ball from the
Speaker 2: running back on fourth down, I got the first down
Speaker 2: to go in and score and beat us, and and
Speaker 2: I went, I went to do the weekly radio show
Speaker 2: in the local sports bar, and they gave a sustaining ovation.
Speaker 2: My wife and I walked in and I said, I whispered,
Speaker 2: he I go, can you believe they're clapping for us
Speaker 2: playing close? And I said, we got to change this.
Speaker 2: And and again the day we the day we settle
Speaker 2: for being average, is the day we probably should step aside.
Speaker 2: So again, you know, we and I think, as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: for the highly competitiveness of this conference, especially if you
Speaker 2: look at the twenty one season, Baylor was picked ninth
Speaker 2: and won the league. You look at the twenty two
Speaker 2: season where TCU made the College Football Playoff, okay, twenty three.
Speaker 2: Whom I forgetting that well last year was Arizona, right yeah,
Speaker 2: and they were they were going to be fourteenth or
Speaker 2: sixteenth depending on who you looked at it, and they
Speaker 2: end up in the College Football Playoff. You can look
Speaker 2: at anybody in this new world of you know, between Rev.
Speaker 2: Shaer and the portal, you have a chance if if
Speaker 2: you if you make additions and I think the thing
Speaker 2: and I don't know how it is in basketball, but
Speaker 2: you can make it great additions to your program that
Speaker 2: aren't flashy, ones that really get you over the hump.
Speaker 2: You can add depth that you can add competition and
Speaker 2: positions that people don't pay attention to, and you can
Speaker 2: get yourself to be a really good football team.
Speaker 1: The new stadium. It's interesting because I think most of
Speaker 1: US coaches would say, like, forget the facilities, give us
Speaker 1: the money for the players. But KU is a bit
Speaker 1: of the exception, right because that facility was just our game.
Speaker 1: It just it didn't it said the university doesn't care.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to have facility that in all honesty,
Speaker 1: if not for you, it does not exist.
Speaker 2: It means a lot as far as stepp enough for commitment,
Speaker 2: and really the timing isn't maybe the best as you're saying,
Speaker 2: because we're stretching donors. Everybody stretching donors these days, we're
Speaker 2: stretching them more than ever because we're trying to We're
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty million in Phase one and we
Speaker 2: have a whole other side of the field to do
Speaker 2: next season hopefully, and we're still trying to get the
Speaker 2: rest of this done. So it but it goes to
Speaker 2: what you said. It shows that we're going to be
Speaker 2: We're going to be committed. It means we understand and
Speaker 2: and no offense to you as a basketball but where
Speaker 2: college football is in the TV revenue streams and what
Speaker 2: we have to be. And it showed that our chancellor
Speaker 2: and our athletic director, you know, as we went through this,
Speaker 2: and how quickly this came together, and how quickly they
Speaker 2: decided that we were going to make this happen, and
Speaker 2: how quickly they put a shovel in the ground has
Speaker 2: really been remarkable and it's starting to pay its dividends.
Speaker 1: Is there one thing about it that you specifically ask
Speaker 1: for that you're getting.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there's a couple of bells and whistles, probably
Speaker 2: a virtual walk through room. We've gotten some other things
Speaker 2: kind of kind of done that. On virtual walk through room. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you'll see. It's kind of a new thing where it's
Speaker 2: their software where you can get mental reps and stuff.
Speaker 1: But so so gone to the days and in basketball
Speaker 1: you have the manager tape out the court in the room.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, we have a little more different than that.
Speaker 2: I probably probably the one probably I don't know if
Speaker 2: I've shared you there was by the office that I
Speaker 2: will occupy, will have a fireplace in it, which will
Speaker 2: be and I said, and my thing is I jokingly say,
Speaker 2: like a fireside chat, but it is. But you know,
Speaker 2: in today's world, of making people feel comfortable in a
Speaker 2: setting that makes it one that you want, that was
Speaker 2: one thing that we kind of try to strive for.
Speaker 2: The one thing I did that after the twenty two
Speaker 2: season we announced the when we announced this project was
Speaker 2: I had to put in into the contract that we
Speaker 2: were going to renovate by August one and we're gonna
Speaker 2: and we're gonna get some things done by December because
Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure that the players who had
Speaker 2: invested it had really helped us turn this around, would
Speaker 2: experience something in the renovation of this program before that,
Speaker 2: because I knew with building a whole stadium they wouldn't
Speaker 2: get a chance to play in it. So we renovated
Speaker 2: the locker room in the weight room, and it was
Speaker 2: really the two areas where they spend most of their
Speaker 2: time were able to do some really nice upgrades that
Speaker 2: the players that really were contributing to that had a
Speaker 2: chance of experience.
Speaker 3: So that was one of To be sure to catch
Speaker 3: live editions of The Doug Gottlieb Show weekdays at three
Speaker 3: pm Eastern noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: I want to bring in a guy who helped set
Speaker 1: us up here today. Cowboy him keen Is is a
Speaker 1: donor of ours and now he claims you guys are
Speaker 1: like childhood friends. That is that accurate?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is. It's he's, uh, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know who's the benefactor of that or not, but it's
Speaker 2: he's Actually, we're probably each other's first friend in life,
Speaker 2: and we lived a block block away from each other,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're probably in pre school of some
Speaker 2: sort and my mother made me walk up the street
Speaker 2: and and uh and and kind of I don't know
Speaker 2: what they call in today's world, playdate type at the end.
Speaker 1: So go make a friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go make a friend and and run right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right, And the street light comes on. You're you
Speaker 2: need to be home? But but what street did you
Speaker 2: grow up on? Krantz Avenue?
Speaker 1: Okay, Tim, what what what street did you grow up on?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I turn your mic on? But I mean, not tech
Speaker 1: savvy at all, not tech savvy at all, makes more
Speaker 1: money than all of us, not tex.
Speaker 2: Sav You got a mute button? There?
Speaker 1: Come on, do you have a microphone in your computer?
Speaker 1: This is this is a this is a very minor detail,
Speaker 1: but one in which apparently you've skipped over. Now we
Speaker 1: can just talk bad about him and he can't do
Speaker 1: anything about it.
Speaker 2: That's the beauty to it. I grew up here.
Speaker 1: Here's here's my so. I had a uh, A buddy
Speaker 1: named Kurt Jensen, who I got Now I still can't hear.
Speaker 1: You're on mute. You're on mute, cowboy, You figure that
Speaker 1: thing out. And I just remember I moved to California
Speaker 1: when I was six years old. My dad was an
Speaker 1: assistant in Lombeach State, and uh I said, Hey, my
Speaker 1: name is Doug. Do you want to be friends. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm picturing you and you and Cowboy way back
Speaker 1: to the day. Tim. Listen, you have a mute button on.
Speaker 1: You got to figure that thing out otherwise, I mean,
Speaker 1: coach has got recruiting calls to make for crying out loud.
Speaker 1: Here there you go. No, well there we go. You
Speaker 1: got a make it up. We can hear you. But
Speaker 1: it's very very very very faint, coach.
Speaker 2: Can you hear faint? It's muffled.
Speaker 1: Man, that's not gonna work. It's not gonna work working
Speaker 1: to wrap it.
Speaker 2: You know. But I'll say this and Ana, but you, Doug.
Speaker 2: The thing about about about Tim is he's been a
Speaker 2: loyal friend. He's came out to all our games this year.
Speaker 2: You know, in life, you know sometimes is especially in
Speaker 2: this coaching world. You move you all over the country.
Speaker 2: But when you can go back and keep your childhood friends,
Speaker 2: you're really fortunate.
Speaker 1: No, that's amazing, that's really amazing. What Okay, So the
Speaker 1: new world order you have rev share and that looks
Speaker 1: like it should theoretically balance everything out for at least
Speaker 1: in the big twelve. Right, your REV shares the same
Speaker 1: as Case State, same as iow State, same as those state,
Speaker 1: same as Houston, Texas Tech. All that reality is does
Speaker 1: the REV share and then you also have your collectives?
Speaker 1: So people are going to go above and beyond that?
Speaker 2: Correct, That's that's some means the multimillion dollar question. How
Speaker 2: is that? How's that fully going to be regulated? They
Speaker 2: feel like they have a good thing in a clearinghouse
Speaker 2: type of set thing and for what is going to
Speaker 2: be commercial nil things. But it's to me it's a
Speaker 2: wait and see to see how that goes through. But
Speaker 2: I do think that all in, all that you know
Speaker 2: is completely balanced. I do think we're in the same
Speaker 2: ball with people.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the question. How do you balance out continuity
Speaker 1: with talent? In other words, you take on a kid
Speaker 1: and everybody, everybody in the portal is better than the
Speaker 1: guys that you have, right right, But if you keep
Speaker 1: this kid, you've had them in your program for a
Speaker 1: year or two years, as opposed to somebody else, it's
Speaker 1: like somebody else's VCR you're trying to reprogram. How do
Speaker 1: you balance that out when you're putting together rust.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we talked about, Doug is
Speaker 2: is a culture of competition is what we're trying to established.
Speaker 2: And we still feel like Kansas we have to be
Speaker 2: a developmental program now. Where there's gaps or there's unexpected
Speaker 2: attrition or other things, that's where we want to hit
Speaker 2: the portal. We want to hit some things if the
Speaker 2: development isn't happening fast enough. But again, you're right, you've
Speaker 2: got to try to find it because guys will hit
Speaker 2: the e jet button really quick and that continuity is
Speaker 2: so important for your team. In the twenty two year,
Speaker 2: in the January twenty two we brought some guys in
Speaker 2: and the portal and the interesting thing was what I
Speaker 2: found out was the current younger players at that time
Speaker 2: really stepped their game up and they hung on to
Speaker 2: their starting jobs and really it created better competition. And
Speaker 2: you're talking about what Kansas was for many years. I
Speaker 2: think we walked into a situation here where players thought
Speaker 2: that they would inherit playing time if they just hung
Speaker 2: around long enough. If I go through it long enough,
Speaker 2: I stay, I'll get the plan and I'll get my film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And and what happened was when with the with the portal.
Speaker 2: Now you can go bring in somebody that's a little older,
Speaker 2: might have might have played, made played somewhere else. And
Speaker 2: and I'll never forget. We brought in a transfer and
Speaker 2: I had a current starter who had a good friend
Speaker 2: I was a younger player, and he said, what's the matter, coach?
Speaker 2: He texted me one night, you don't believe in so
Speaker 2: and so. I said, yeah, I believe in so and so.
Speaker 2: I just want more depth at the position and competition.
Speaker 2: And the thing is with that that current player hung
Speaker 2: on to his starting job. It made the team better though,
Speaker 2: And I think that's one positive that the portal can give.
Speaker 1: When you're in the portal, how do you handle the
Speaker 1: like how do you try and find out what the kids'
Speaker 1: priorities are?
Speaker 2: You know, obviously you got to make your background calls.
Speaker 2: You got to find those things. And again then through
Speaker 2: the question you try to dig in what are you
Speaker 2: hoping for? Is it again? Why why are you leaving? Okay,
Speaker 2: that's the other thing. If if you if you see
Speaker 2: a lot of finger pointing and blaming, then you don't
Speaker 2: know if that's a good fit. Again, a lot of them,
Speaker 2: you know a lot of them as well. I want
Speaker 2: to get to the league or I want to do this,
Speaker 2: but how are you going to get there? What are
Speaker 2: you willing to do? Are you are? You know what's
Speaker 2: like you said, the priority of you want to try
Speaker 2: to help the help the team get better. Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: just looking at try to get to play. I understand
Speaker 2: I got to earn it. You know, when they start talking,
Speaker 2: if it starts, if the conversation start financially first, and
Speaker 2: the amount of snaps, we're probably not in the right
Speaker 2: ballpark with that individual. If it gets more about program,
Speaker 2: an opportunity and and and helping a program, then we
Speaker 2: found out that we got a good mix.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a very interesting Obviously everybody knows
Speaker 1: the lead with money. You're like, yeah, we're good. But
Speaker 1: but my big one is when they don't talk about winning.
Speaker 1: You know, if you'd have mentioned, you know, winning, then.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then I asked him. I usually asked him a
Speaker 1: basketball like you question, just to see what I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with and to see how how how deep it is.
Speaker 1: My problem is now I have too many smart ones
Speaker 1: and I need I need a little bit more, a
Speaker 1: little bit of hits in there. Gidea if you will Yeah, yep,
Speaker 1: what's the ceiling. What's the what's the realistic ceiling for
Speaker 1: KA football?
Speaker 2: Well, again, like I said earlier, I think in today's
Speaker 2: world of college football, there's no reason why we can
Speaker 2: actual be for Big twelve championships and with with multiple
Speaker 2: opportunitunities to be a team that can be a playoff team.
Speaker 2: I think that's I think that's legitimate for for ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the power forward programs in the country. I
Speaker 2: really do, and I think our conference as much as
Speaker 2: any What was there ever a moment though, because it
Speaker 2: is your name, when you guys pop up with nine
Speaker 2: games and you flip it that quick, you know you're
Speaker 2: the Taco College football and yet you stayed you stayed.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment last year when you're going through
Speaker 1: all the injuries and you're going through a season that
Speaker 1: wasn't as good as your thought that you're like, why
Speaker 1: did do this?
Speaker 2: When I leave, I think there's more point of disappointment
Speaker 2: that I was letting people down, that this team wasn't
Speaker 2: reaching what its potential was. But I have not sit
Speaker 2: there gone I should have done this or done this
Speaker 2: and looked and taken this other opportunity you know, I'm
Speaker 2: sure through your Oklahoma State days, you know, Lawrence, Kansas
Speaker 2: is a nice college town. It's really a good place people.
Speaker 2: My wife and I and our son, we really enjoy
Speaker 2: it here. And the thing is, Doug, I could say this,
Speaker 2: there's not a time that we're probably not out somewhere
Speaker 2: or doing something where somebody doesn't come up and say
Speaker 2: thank you or something. I truly feel that our work
Speaker 2: and things here are appreciated and I want to continue that.
Speaker 2: And with that is I do feel that I haven't
Speaker 2: when you looked a little bit about you talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about my career through this talk is I'd
Speaker 2: like to think that I'm on the lower end of
Speaker 2: career moves. When you when you look at things, and
Speaker 2: many times I repeated back where I was at before.
Speaker 2: I'm not a job hopper. I'm not one to take
Speaker 2: a lot of risks and do those things. So once
Speaker 2: I find the place and we're happy, I'm I'm good.
Speaker 2: Your parents still lot, No, they're not. Unfortunately my father
Speaker 2: my mother passed you know, over twenty five years ago
Speaker 2: and from cancer, and then Dad passed about three months
Speaker 2: before I took this job.
Speaker 1: So I wonder what he would say if he knew
Speaker 1: you made or five million dollars coaching football, he.
Speaker 2: Would he would He's probably turning over in his grave.
Speaker 1: What would what would what would Lance say to Lance? Like,
Speaker 1: twenty three year old making five hundred dollars to coach
Speaker 1: football and meanwhile, you're trying to be a cop. You
Speaker 1: know at other hours, if you were to tell yourself, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be sixty and you're gonna make five and
Speaker 1: that million dollars coach college football, what would you say?
Speaker 2: No? Way, You're the luckiest man on earth. And and
Speaker 2: you know there's days where you really embrace it and
Speaker 2: you go through it and you're so fortunate, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it's crazy, and but I don't pay attention. My wife
Speaker 2: does that, and as she all tells me, I still
Speaker 2: act like I make the five hundred bucks that I
Speaker 2: made before.
Speaker 1: It's always funny though, you start making more money, and
Speaker 1: you know, like all you wear is your school clothing anyway,
Speaker 1: so you say, have a ton of money.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Last thing, I've lived in Wisconsin now for I don't know,
Speaker 1: eight nine months, and one thing I know is people
Speaker 1: love their sports. And then in the summer or outside
Speaker 1: of the sports season. They either hunt and fish or
Speaker 1: they play golf, which are you neither?
Speaker 2: I don't have hobbies. We go to the beach maybe
Speaker 2: in Florida or something. But I thought you're gonna bring
Speaker 2: up the one thing that would I would do if
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin. If I was you, I'd go to Summerfest
Speaker 2: in Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean I went last year, no question.
Speaker 2: That's that was definitely a staple. So Brewers brought worst Summerfest.
Speaker 2: Those are those are some of my.
Speaker 1: Hobbies I've done. I've done all three of those. And
Speaker 1: I did seven Packer games last year. Yeah, I overloaded
Speaker 1: on Packers. It was awesome.
Speaker 2: Now, if I may ask a good questions, did you
Speaker 2: at Milwaukee at one time?
Speaker 1: Yes, seventy five to eighty one.
Speaker 2: Did he did he work for like A Did he
Speaker 2: do something with the recruiting service at one time later
Speaker 2: in his career or something? Yeah, I remember talking to
Speaker 2: him on the phone one time. Wave. I think I
Speaker 2: was working in Omaha at that time.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you did. That's why you know, it's like
Speaker 1: there's not a gym I go into that. People don't
Speaker 1: know my dad, especially at the lower levels. You know,
Speaker 1: he had a great relationship with coach Bennett back in
Speaker 1: the day when you know and you name it versus
Speaker 1: Pearl when he was at Southern Indiana U. So what
Speaker 1: he did was he went from being a high school
Speaker 1: coach to Division one assistant. He was a k State
Speaker 1: and at Creighton with coach Sutton was Jack Hartman. At
Speaker 1: k State, he was head coach Jacksonville, head coaching Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: and he was assistant with text Winner his assistant for
Speaker 1: one year of Ralph Miller Oregon State. And then he
Speaker 1: kind of tooled around minor leagues and so he started
Speaker 1: coaching youth basketball, and then youth basketball became AU basketball
Speaker 1: became like a basketball academy, and he used to have
Speaker 1: a goal that every kid in his top team gets
Speaker 1: a Division one scholarship. So he's calling around, putting together
Speaker 1: highlight tapes, and he knew everybody in the sport. And
Speaker 1: so at some point somebody grip pulled him aside and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you can make money doing this. And it
Speaker 1: was about, you know, my senior year that he started
Speaker 1: going and evaluating kids. He'd fly over the country, pop
Speaker 1: into a random high school game, evaluate a kid, go
Speaker 1: meet the parents and say like who's the recruiting your son,
Speaker 1: They'd say nobody. He say, all right, listen again him
Speaker 1: a Division one scholarship, be this much, two, this much three,
Speaker 1: And because the access to college was valuable for these kids,
Speaker 1: and so he would he called everybody. He was just
Speaker 1: had an amazing work ethic with calling people, and he
Speaker 1: was his belief which he instilled in me, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a kid to a college campus is
Speaker 1: a life changing moment. Do whatever you can, just around
Speaker 1: people at a college, chance of them being married, being successful,
Speaker 1: being out of jail, breaking the cycle, whatever, always all
Speaker 1: gets better if you just get into college. And then
Speaker 1: if you get into one where it fits, they can play.
Speaker 1: Now you're cooking and and that's what he did. So
Speaker 1: you know, he did that literally up until just about
Speaker 1: the day he died. He was coaching AU basketball, trying
Speaker 1: to play kids in college.
Speaker 2: Wow. Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, well listen, I'm gonna make it to a
Speaker 1: game this year. I don't appreciate, but I do completely
Speaker 1: respect the fact that your first year you got smoked
Speaker 1: by Oklahoma State, and then the next time they come
Speaker 1: to Lawrence it's the complete opposite, Right, I'm really kind
Speaker 1: of remarkable, remarkable. But I'm coming to a Jayhawk game
Speaker 1: this year and maybe we'll play the Jayhawks and hoops.
Speaker 1: We'll see coach elf sif we're going to do it,
Speaker 1: but I'll wait till I see that contract.
Speaker 2: That'd be great.
Speaker 1: But listen, it's an honor to talk to you because
Speaker 1: you are a builder, you are a somebody who I
Speaker 1: think everybody in college football has an immense, immense amount
Speaker 1: of respect for how you do and what you do,
Speaker 1: not just at KU, but at Buffalo and at Whitewater previously.
Speaker 1: So I truly appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: Well I appreciate it too. Thanks for the opportunity. I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it, and let's do it begin, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Thanks you much to the way, Thank you, thank you
Speaker 2: see a cowboy.
Speaker 1: Wow, my thanks to coach Leopold for joining us, spending
Speaker 1: all that time. Pretty awesome stuff. I hope you enjoyed,
Speaker 1: Coach in both of those those two editions of All Ball.
Speaker 1: Remember the Doug Gottlieb Show or airs daily three to
Speaker 1: five e's from twelve two Pacific Fox Sports Tradio. Iheartradiot Plus.
Speaker 1: You download that in podcast form anytime you want. Just
Speaker 1: type in Doug ot this podcast. In the meantime, I'm
Speaker 1: Doug Gottliebin. This is all ball.