It was clear the staple of Kansas football’s offense this year would be the run game. That is until game time arrived, and the run game was nowhere to be found.
The Kansas offense could only muster up 82 yards rushing on 41 attempts against a rather uninspiring South Dakota rush defense. Starting quarterback, Jason Bean had 54 of those yards while starting running back Velton Gardner added 21 yards on 19 attempts.
And the issue wasn’t just in one area–it was the offensive line, the tight ends, the wide receivers, and the running backs. New head coach Lance Leipold even agreed, saying, “there’s multiple things that need to be corrected and cleaned up.”
But how long will it take to correct and clean these things up? According to Leipold, they plan on fixing the issues sooner rather than later.
"Everybody involved can be a little bit better. I think we’re going to find a way to do that here, quickly. There’s a lot of things that need to be corrected. We know that and we’re working on them right now."
It’s hard to imagine a run game that averaged barely over a yard-per-carry among its three running backs can make that much improvement in only a week. A lot of the issues appeared to be communication problems with linemen not knowing their assignments. And even when they did know their assignment, they didn’t seem to make the effort needed of them.
One of the highlights during fall camp was how this year’s offensive line would be much improved under Scott Fuchs, who had incredible success at Buffalo and Wyoming. Add in three offensive line transfers in Mike Novitsky (Buffalo), Michael Ford Jr. (Buffalo), and Colin Grunhard (Notre Dame), and it seemed to be all but guaranteed.
Unfortunately, things haven’t quite come together as expected. That’s not to say they won’t come together, but it will take longer than initially expected.
It was also surprising to see true freshman Devin Neal only get one carry when the coaching staff couldn’t hold back their excitement on him during fall camp. Leipold gave some more detail on that decision when speaking to the media.
"We wanted to get Velton going a little bit more, that’s probably why we stayed with him to try to get a little more rhythm. Probably hurt that we didn’t get Devin Neal in as much. We’re trying to get a rotation, but earlier in the game when you’re not moving the ball, if you keep rotating nobody gets the feel of it."
His reasoning makes sense, but Gardner wasn’t making all the correct reads and hitting the right holes, either. At times he seemed hesitant and didn’t exude the quick decision-making ability that he’s usually known for.
That’s when throwing in a different running back can potentially open things up. If one guy isn’t having a great night or getting the job done, the coaches need to be prepared to go on to the next guy.
Even then, now is not the time to be too concerned. This coaching staff knows what they’re doing, and they’ve been in a rebuilding project before. Sometimes things work out better than expected, and sometimes they do just the opposite.
It’s also worth noting that this offense is full of capable players willing to put in the work to be successful from the offensive line to the wide receivers, tight ends, quarterbacks, and running backs. If there’s any group of guys I’d bet on, it would be this team.
While I don’t expect a huge improvement in the run game for the Jayhawks against their next opponent Coastal Carolina this Friday night, I do expect progress, and I expect the coaches will have a plan if things don’t go as planned.