ESPN's Bill Connelly has dug deep into the stats to reveal some pretty interesting thoughts regarding some of the nation's top coaches, Kansas head coach Lance Leipold included.
"Best performance vs. historic baseline averages for the past 20 years (min. nine seasons):"
Leipold's Kansas squad was ranked 7th in Connelly's ranking with a +9.5 SP rating, for his time at both Kansas and Buffalo, where he coached from 2015-2020.
You are probably asking what even is the SP+? Fair question.
Without getting too much into the nitty-gritty, Connelly uses efficiency (S) and (P) Points per play, with the + used to denote adjustments for opponent and tempo. It can (and does) get a lot more complicated than that, but the biggest part is this. If a team has a +23.5 SP+, then that team is 23.5 points better than an average FBS team on a neutral field.
Last season, ESPN's SP+ ranking predicted five of the top six teams in the preseason projections made the College Football Playoff. No. 3 Oregon went unbeaten in the regular season, while No. 2 Ohio State won the national title -- and No. 4 Alabama and No. 8 Ole Miss nearly did.
As head coach of Buffalo, Leipold worked magic taking a team with two winning seasons over the last 10 years, before Leipold led the Bulls 24 wins over their last 34 games with Leipold at the helm.
Heading into his reign at Kansas, the Jayhawks hadn't managed a winning season since 2008 under Mark Mangino.
With Leipold thus far, the Jayhawks have snatched a 22-28 record with two bowl appearances and a third most likely this upcoming season. If you dig into the deeper numbers, barring a first-season rebuild year, which saw Kansas win just two games, then Leipold's adjusted numbers see him sitting at a 20-18 record,
The article doesn't state how much the SP+ is split between Buffalo and Kansas, but in all likelihood, his SP+ had to be high at both schools since he turned each of the programs into ranked schools at one point or another.
While this is a metric that heavily favors coaches who are elite at building programs, now is the time we begin to see if Leipold can keep up the momentum he has culminated with this Kansas team, after five one-score losses, frustration from last season can quickly build on Leipold.