The visiting Kansas Jayhawks got off to a slow start against the 12th-ranked Utah Utes Saturday night and ultimately fell, 41-24.
Despite that, Kansas head coach Lance Leipold said he is not concerned about his team’s urgency.
“We just got to execute better,” he said. “That was a point of emphasis all week, coming out and being aggressive. One thing that we saw on tape is a lot of teams play Utah passively and tentatively and try to keep it kind of basic and close, and we wanted to be aggressive in this, so that was not something that we planned,” he said.
“Wish we would have been more successful, obviously, in that first quarter, and it took a little bit to get ourselves going, but I don’t think, like I said, it was intentional. It was more execution.”
Leipold was impressed with his quarterback, Isaiah Marshall, and the protection that allowed him to hit his receivers downfield.
“We struggled running the ball most of the day, but we were able to hit some intermediate routes and get some confidence,” Leipold said.
“We were protecting Isaiah pretty well and got a little rhythm. I think when we started to play faster, you know, tempo-wise, it kind of got us in a good rhythm and made some things happen.”
He continued by saying there were some openings in the “intermediate game and some things that we thought, if we could protect, we could get some guys open based on some things that we were seeing in coverage.
“I think some soft spots that (receiver) Cam Pickett did a good job of finding, and, again, just stuff we do in our pass game that that really kind of felt that we could make it happen.”
“Isaiah continues to get better each and every game. He grows in a game like this against a defense of that caliber, I think hopefully it will continue to boost his confidence.”
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Leipold overall was impressed with his signal caller, who recorded 333 yards passing on the night.
“All in all, I can only think of a couple times where I thought he could have went somewhere else with the ball, so decision-making, getting it to the right people was impressive,” Leipold said.
“Even through all this in this environment that you have to step into, he doesn’t get rattled, and his composure is excellent, and he has a lot of good days ahead of him.”
During a touchdown-scoring drive for the Utes that saw two pass interference penalties against the Jayhawks, Leipold was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.
He said he wasn’t concerned with the officials but was “walking out to our injured player, and he was directly in my line and he thought I was coming after him, so he flagged me.
“And it’s unfortunate because Syeed (Gibbs) is laying down on the ground, and I’m looking right through the official as I’m walking out there, and he starts reaching, and that’s when I point. I’m like, ‘I’m pointing at our player behind him.’”
At that point it seemed inevitable the Utes would score as they were just outside the 10 yard line. Leipold’s penalty just put Utah at the six, where Devon Dampier found Noah Bennee for a touchdown.
“But yeah, was I upset? I thought our guys were playing the ball. Those are, as we know, those are really hard calls. As they go through, I’m sure some went the second half our direction, you know, (Utah) coach (Morgan) Scalley’s probably not real happy on that side with some of those,” Leipold said.
“But I thought Syeed, especially on the one at the goal line, I thought he was turning to play the ball as it was coming back, and the other one I just thought was uncatchable because it was so short, and they felt that he could still get back and get it.”
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Up next for Kansas is its rivalry game with Kansas State next week.