Lance Leipold talks about preparing to play in London
Kansas is set to face Arizona State in the Union Jack Classic on Sept. 19, marking a rare overseas game. Lance Leipold met with reporters from the London area to discuss what goes into preparing a team for an international game — a process he said involves quite a bit of work.
He knows the matchup will draw attention when his team travels to London this fall, but much of the work, he said, will take place long before that. He credited people in his program like Rob Ianello and Michael Painter among others for the administrative assistance.
A lot of the responsibility falls on the behind-the-scenes staff tasked with organizing everything from travel routes to daily schedules. Painter has already traveled overseas to map out distances between hotels, practice facilities and the stadium, while also preparing for challenges like traffic patterns.
“They’re the people behind the scenes putting all of this together,” Leipold said. “Traffic is going to be a big hurdle for us because we don’t get the same type of escorts for traffic flow that we sometimes do in the United States. So those are things we’re working through — getting our gear sent over, logistics from hotel to practice site, hotel to stadium, and food.”
Even meals, Leipold said, require careful planning when traveling with a football roster. The size of college teams and the nutritional demands of high-level athletes create challenges that aren’t always easy to replicate at home.
“A lot of times when you go to a country that doesn’t deal with the size of squads we have, the size of human beings we have to feed, and the amount of calories they need, you really have to think through how all of that’s going to work,” he said.
Beyond travel and nutrition, Kansas will also need to recreate a daily football routine in a foreign setting. Leipold described the need to build a temporary operations hub inside the team hotel, complete with meeting rooms and position group spaces.
“There are also hotel logistics — not just fitting everyone in, but setting up essentially a satellite office,” Leipold said. “How do we arrange meeting rooms? How do we break out by position groups? There are a lot of moving pieces involved.”
The timing of the game presents another layer of complexity. Unlike a lot of international matchups that open or close a season, the Jayhawks will be playing in mid-September, after already playing a couple games. That includes facing rival the week before and then heading to London.
“Another unique challenge is the timing,” Leipold said. “We’re playing in the middle of September. Even though we have an open week afterward, we’ll already have games under our belt.”
That has forced Kansas to study how to manage travel fatigue, recovery, and they have looked to professional teams that have handled overseas trips in recent years.
“We’ve reached out to NFL teams about how they’ve handled it,” Leipold said. “Some have stayed longer, some have said get in and out as fast as possible. We’re trying to find the right balance.”
Leipold said they hope to embrace the opportunity and not take the quick approach. Sure, there will be challenges but he wants to take advantage of the opportunity and not rush through things.
“I don’t want this to be just a ‘get in, play the game, and leave’ situation,” Leipold said. “There needs to be cultural engagement, some ambassadorship, and an impact that helps grow the game. We owe that to everyone involved and want to make it a great experience for all who are part of it.”
