Kansas Reunites With Play Calling Mastermind of Kotelnicki

This, combined with a defense that allowed 387.2 yards per game and was the worst-ranked defense for the Jayhawks since 2022, is what caused the Jayhawks to once again flounder out at 5-7. Another season of promise, dashed by ineptitude. The Jayhawks had plenty of talent, but were predictable offensively, didn’t take risks and make plays when it mattered, played not to lose rather than to win and couldn’t command on defense.

Coaching Matters

Many of the issues Kansas has faced over the past two years have fallen on the coaching staff. Lack of discipline, predictability, putting players in bad situations and overall just not making the correct play calls when it mattered. Plenty of instances over the past two years where trusting your players to make plays, taking necessary and calculated risks and just staying disciplined would have won crucial games for KU.

This is why getting Kotelnicki back could make huge changes for the Jayhawks. Kotelnicki was no stranger to taking risks, getting creative and trusting players to do their job well. Sugar huddles, ample motion and variances of the RPO offense are just the tip of the iceberg for Kotelnicki’s genius. He utilized the talent in his players so that they would be put in the best situations to flex said talent.

Take former quarterback Jason Bean, for example. A quarterback who had some decision-making and confidence troubles, but had the arm talent and leg talent to do some major damage if he got open field to work with. Bean struggled in his first year with the Jayhawks, looking like he would be just another failed starter for KU. After being replaced by the aforementioned Daniels in 2021, things looked bleak for Bean.

However, in 2023, Daniels had a nagging back injury that kept him sidelined for the majority of the season. Kotelnicki had already featured Bean as a speed option quarterback that would also line up at receiver and in the backfield, but now, he needed him as the starter. Bean needed to answer the call to sustain Kansas’s upward trajectory.

The transition was almost seamless, with Bean showing that he had great abilities when running trick plays to loosen up the defense. Top that with a great run game made up of Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw Jr., and you had a recipe to open up huge chunk plays both in the air and on the ground. Bean became a legend in Kansas football lore, placing third all-time in Kansas history in passing touchdowns and one of the best all-time in passing yards. A career that looked like it was dead in the water, resurrected by the adaptive play calling of Kotelnicki.

Kotelnicki’s Play-Calling Genius

Kotelnicki will be taking full control of the offense going into next year. Many believe he is Kansas’s head coach in waiting once Lance Leipold, now 61 and in coaching for almost 40 years, chooses to retire. The way he inspires players’ confidence through putting them in situations to thrive is not the only reason for that.

Kotelnicki is a player’s coach, absolutely, but his ability to draw up versatile and creative plays is what Penn State salivated over when they first hired him. It’s what made Kansas such an exciting team to watch in 2022 and 2023. Multiple quarterback plays, sugar huddles with motion that send defenses into panic mode, flea flickers and toss plays where as many as four players touch the ball and so many more off-the-rails ideas makes Kotelnicki’s offense a circus in the greatest of ways.

His play-calling has been so intriguing, even NFL teams take notice. Teams like the Kansas City Chiefs and Cleveland Browns have taken pages out of Kotelnicki’s playbook and have given their playbooks some spice and excitement. While it may take some getting used to, once players are familiar with the playbook, it becomes one of the most lethal offensive attacks in all of football.

Kansas has missed being without Kotelnicki. While Zebrowski certainly has his strengths in the passing game, nothing could open up and Daniels’s confidence was shot for most of the year due to having such a severe lack of run game compared to past seasons. Fellow co-offensive coordinator Lubick also had a tendency toward the pass game, which also did not help running back coach Jonathan Wallace’s running backs unit flourish.

Kotelnicki will not just bring creativity, but balance as well. It’s been said that in order to establish the pass, you must establish the run. While that is a very generalized statement and every offense is different, making the defense cheat up and condense is part of what opens up the passing game. Kotelnicki’s offense allows for unpredictability and variance, which causes this to happen naturally and doesn’t feel as forced as running inside run after inside run to establish essentially nothing.

Conclusion

Leipold and Kotelnicki have a long-standing relationship. Before Kotelnicki left for Penn State, he was part of Leipold’s staff for a decade. A respect and reverence for one another, the hope for Kansas in at least the upcoming season is that the relationship hasn’t lost its luster. Penn State struggled last season offensively, but it was mainly due to injury and failure to execute.

Kansas might need a year to get back to being used to Kotelnicki’s offense, especially with the amount of turnover their roster will have. Barely any of the players returning in 2026 had experienced Kotelnicki’s offense before, so it will be a learning curve.

However, should the players learn quickly, and with Kotelnicki’s full control of the offense, the transition could be more seamless than it originally looks. Time will tell, but for now, this is a reunification that Jayhawk fans were looking forward to. A breath of fresh air after struggling to find their footing again. Sometimes, all it takes is to go back to the basics and to familiarity, even if that familiarity looks like the playbook of a mad scientist.