KU football coach Lance Leipold discusses QB battle after first practice of season

Lance Leipold is prepared to wait a while before naming the starting quarterback for his first Kansas football team.

“I don’t have a timetable. It might be … I don’t know, what time’s kickoff? 7:05? It might be 7:05,” Leipold said Thursday morning with a smile. The former Buffalo coach was referring to starting time for the Jayhawks’ opener against South Dakota on Sept. 3 at Booth Memorial Stadium.

“Those things … I don’t know if I’ll ever pin myself on dates and things like that,” he added, speaking with media after KU’s initial two-hour practice of the 2021 season. “If it shows itself and we go, then it’s going to go.”

The contenders at QB appear to be returnees Miles Kendrick and Jalon Daniels as well as incoming transfer Jason Bean, formerly a starter at North Texas.

“We’ve got competition at every position, so until things start settling and separating a little bit, we’ll look at it and continue to evaluate and go from there,” Leipold said.

Leipold joked that, “I got to see them throw a football today so that’s something I can finally answer a little bit.

“I think it’s a great (quarterback) room, talented. Everybody’s got stuff they’ve got to work on. Who is going to lead this offense is who gives us the best chance to win,” he added.

Bean is a 6-foot-3 junior from Mansfield, Texas; Daniels, a 6-foot sophomore from Lawndale, California and Kendrick, a 5-10 senior from Morgan Hill, California.

Other QBs on the roster: freshman Conrad Hawley out of Raymore-Peculiar High School, sophomore Jordan Preston out of Mill Valley High, freshman Ben Easters of Brownsburg, Indiana and senior Miles Fallin of Canyon Country, California.

“Who is going to lead the offense is who gives us the best chance to win,” Leipold said. “Part of that is getting us in and out of the right things, making great decisions, protecting the football. They know that.

“Finding ways to get them all reps is going to be another great challenge in this thing but I’m confident we will,” Leipold noted.

Of the first practice in his first season at KU, Leipold said: “I think there’s excitement. They (players) can see how we operate. I think if they embrace that and attack it, we’re going to see the benefits of a lot of different things.”

KU coach on OU and Texas plans to leave Big 12 for SEC

Leipold gave his first public comment about Texas and Oklahoma deciding to leave the Big 12 for the SEC: “Obviously it caught us all by surprise. There’s going to be a lot of things to talk about, things for you (media) to cover and that. Honestly where we’re at and of course the timeline that we are under, we are in the Big 12 and I’m preparing this team to get ready for the Big 12 season and that’s where all our focus needs to be.”