Georgia Tech Football: Lance Leipold Should be the Yellow Jackets Top Target for Head Coach
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At the start of the college football season, not many people could tell you who Lance Leipold was unless you were a diehard college football fan or a Kansas Jayhawk fan. After the Jayhawks took the nation by storm in the early part of the season and looked like a completely different team than what we have grown accustomed to Kansas being in the past decade or so, everyone knows who Leipold is.
With the recent firing of Geoff Collins at Georgia Tech, there are going to be numerous candidates' names thrown out there. The name you are going to be hearing the most is Jackson State head coach Deion Sanders, who might be a good fit. The name I think you should be hearing the most is Leipold's.
Lance Leipold is a coach that knows how to build a program from the ground up
Leipold's first head coaching job was with Wisconsin-Whitewater from 2007-2014. For those unfamiliar, Wisconsin-Whitewater is one of the premier programs in Division III football and Leipold had an astounding record of 109-6 during his time there. That is what led him to get the head coaching job with the Buffalo Bulls.
Everyone knew that it was going to be a tough rebuild for the Bulls in the MAC, but after going 7-17 in his first two years in 2015 and 2016, Leipold had them bowl eligible at 6-6 in 2017. Although they did not get selected, this was clearly seen as a program on the rise and ready for a big couple of years.
Leipold delivered on that and went 10-4 in 2018 and then 8-5 in 2019. He capped the 2019 season off with a win in the Bahamas Bowl and had become one of the best teams in the MAC. The COVID shortened season in 2020 resulted in a 6-1 record and that would be the last season that Leipold would spend in Buffalo before taking the hardest power five coaching job in the country.
Kansas Head Coach Lance Leipold has Kansas hopeful for a bowl game in 2022
Kansas has been a mockery in college football for the last decade or so and had not had a season with more than three wins since 2009 until this season. When he took over, this was easily one of the worst teams in the country and everyone knew that it was going to take time for Leipold to get his culture and program running how he wanted it to, but he showed signs of it late in 2021.
Kansas closed the 2021 season with close losses to Oklahoma, West Virginia, and TCU and of course the upset win over Texas. The Jayhawks already have wins over West Virginia and Houston and Duke this season and appear to be charging toward a bowl game. The offense is one of the most efficient in the nation behind quarterback Jalon Daniels and is very fun to watch.
With Geoff Collins at the helm for the past four seasons, Georgia Tech fans have heard promises about developing a culture and a program to be proud of, but what they have received is the complete opposite of that. There is no discipline and accountability in this program currently no matter how many times Collins talked about it and this team is worse off now than when Collins first arrived and that is completely unacceptable.
Lance Leipold is going to be one of the hottest names on the coaching market
It might not be an easy move to make, but I think Georgia Tech should go all in on Lance Leipold as their choice as head coach. He has won everywhere that he has been and has experience with rebuilding programs from the ground up, which is what he is going to have to do if he decides he wants to be in Atlanta. Kansas is a tougher job than Georgia Tech and he already has them playing at a much higher level in his second year than Collins ever did at Tech. He obviously knows how to identify talent and develop it. Just look at how good of a quarterback Daniels is with Leipold now.
There will be some unknowns with him if he wanted the job. Tech has academic restrictions that it obviously has to work around, competing with recruits with other schools in the area like Georgia, Clemson, Auburn, North Carolina, and others is a challenge that Leipold has not had experience in doing. Expectations will be higher at Georgia Tech than they are at Kansas.
The other question is: Will Leipold want this job? Georgia Tech might not have the money to give him the salary and resources that he is going to want to use to win at a higher level and there are going to be other jobs that could potentially interest him. He has already been mentioned for the open Arizona State and Nebraska jobs and both of those places have more money and resources than Tech does, especially Nebraska. He is also getting into unfamiliar territory in Atlanta and in the south and might feel more comfortable taking another job.
This is going to be a rebuilding job for a couple of years for Georgia Tech and they are going to have to be smart in taking in transfers and evaluating and developing recruits for these next couple of seasons while they get everything in place in the program.
Who better than the guy that raised Kansas from the dead and made them a fun program to watch and root for? That would be my choice.
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