Kansas coach Lance Leipold shoots down Wisconsin rumblings: 'We have no plans on going anywhere'

Lance Leipold would make a ton of sense as Wisconsin football's next head coach. In fact, he probably makes too much sense for the faithful fans of Kansas football.

The Jayhawks finally have a product on the field they can be proud of. Kansas has long been a basketball school and that's not changing anytime soon. Still, Leipold has Kansas at 5-0 and ranked No. 19 in college football in just his second season in Lawrence.

He's been a phenom for the Jayhawks, but along with his success has come the needy stares of coach-hungry programs. First, there was Nebraska, which fired head coach Scott Frost just a few weeks into the season. After this past weekend, the Badgers joined the coaching carousel after a 2-3 start to Paul Chryst's eighth season in Madison. 

While Leipold has loose ties to Nebraska, he was born and raised in Wisconsin and was the quarterback for the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater from 1983-86. His first season as a coach was as an assistant at Whitewater and then he actually spent three seasons as a graduate assistant for the Badgers from 1991–93. Leipold eventually wound up back at Wisconsin–Whitewater as head coach, where he went 109-6 with six Division III national championships in eight seasons. He was hired as the head coach at the University of Buffalo and had a successful enough stint -- 37-33 with two bowl wins -- that Kansas swooped him up after Les Miles went just 3-18 in his stint as head coach.

So far so good for Leipold and the Jayhawks. He won only two games last season but one of them was against Texas, which was a step in the right direction. The Jayhawks are, of course, rolling this season and Leipold is the hot name in coaching circles. 

Would his success at Kansas this season plus his undeniable ties to Wisconsin make him want to jump ship in Lawrence?

"We're happy here. We have no plans on going anywhere," Leipold recently told the Associated PRess regarding rumors linking him to the Badgers, according to ESPN. ""Anything else is rumors. Some of these things are happening while we're in the film room -- I didn't even know some of the stuff Sunday until later in the evening, when I'm getting all these text messages. I had no idea."

It will be interesting to see if the Jayhawks can hold onto Leipold, especially if he continues leading the program to wins. It will also be interesting to see if Wisconsin tries to make a run at him. It would make sense, after all. 

As the Associated Press put it, Leipold is "about as Wisconsin as summer sausage and cheese".