Kansas football: Inside what's kept Lance Leipold, Andy Kotelnicki, Brian Borland together

LAWRENCE — Relationships can be difficult to cultivate, and even harder to maintain.

There’s the ever-important first impression. There are the tests that follow and the unknown of what’s to come.

So as Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold reflected earlier this month, on the time he’s shared with both Andy Kotelnicki and Brian Borland, it wasn’t all that shocking that he was surprised by the time they’ve all spent together. Kotelnicki, his offensive coordinator, and Borland, his defensive coordinator, shared similar viewpoints. Dating back to stints at Division I Buffalo, and Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, the trio is in the midst of a more than decade-long stretch together in their respective roles.

While the current state of college football may make that sound uncommon, the reasons they’ve stuck together aren’t. They’re the same reasons any person would want to be around and work with anyone else, even when it’s not always perfect. Leipold pointed to the idea that Kotelnicki and Borland have been coaches and teachers in the way they are supposed to be, that they haven’t gotten hung up on salaries or titles.

“Glen Mason said that, when he came here,” said Leipold, bringing up a former KU coach. “He said, ‘We have football coaches here on this staff.’ Some guys like being coaches because of the money, the recognition, everything that’s going on today in this world. Andy, Brian, Jim (Zebrowski), Chris (Simpson), the guys that have been in a long time, they’re in it for the right reasons. And I can keep going. And I think that’s why we’ve had the continuity.”

That first impression

Lance Leipold’s familiarity with Andy Kotelnicki and Brian Borland differed, before that first fall together in 2013 at Wisconsin-Whitewater.

As Borland remembers it, he and Leipold grew up about five miles apart from each other in the state of Wisconsin and both had dads who were in coaching. Once Borland and Leipold got into coaching themselves, they kept track of each other. Borland was already on staff at Wisconsin-Whitewater when Leipold became the head coach ahead of the 2007 season. So Borland went from a familiar face to someone Leipold got to know much better as the years unfolded.

As Kotelnicki remembers it, he and Leipold hadn’t interacted much before their paths crossed early in Leipold’s tenure as the head coach at Wisconsin-Whitewater, and a handful of years before Kotelnicki joined the staff. This was when Kotelnicki, who had a ton of respect for the success Leipold was having, was the offensive coordinator at Wisconsin-River Falls.

They chatted on a bus ride for a bit, and continued to stay in touch.

“I think your initial impression when you meet him and shake hands, is just this very humble, nice, kind human being — comes off that way, and I think that that remains to be true today,” Kotelnicki said. “That’s probably why you just strike up a conversation, because he’s easy to talk to.”

Leipold, Kotelnicki and Borland all mentioned in different ways how they’ve grown together over the years since, but what’s remained consistent is the complimentary nature of their personalities and roles. What’s remained consistent is the loyalty they feel toward one another. There’s a confidence that comes from knowing who you’re working with and what they are about.

Kotelnicki described himself as a concrete, sequential thinker who can be loud and obnoxious. Kotelnicki, who was certain Leipold and Borland wouldn’t be as harsh when describing him, added that Leipold can be more abstract with ideas and Borland is humble and quiet.

There’s balance, especially among people with similar values.

“I don’t feel like there’s, like, rivalry in that kind of that internal competition that — where you’re trying to one up somebody all of the time and position yourself for something,” Borland said. “I don’t feel like it’s really ever been that way. I think we were — feel like we’re, hey, we’re all in this together and I think all of us are willing to do whatever it takes in order to keep moving forward.”

Making the move from Division III to Division I, and from Group of Five to Power Five

One could have understood if Lance Leipold went another route with his coordinators when he took the Buffalo and Kansas jobs.

Going to Buffalo from Wisconsin-Whitewater meant making the jump from Division III to Division I. Going to Kansas meant making the jump from a Group of Five program to the Power Five. Sustained success is never a guarantee, even though that run started with back-to-back national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater.

But from Leipold’s perspective, football would always be football. He wanted to trust his gut more than he wanted to hire a name or two that people outside the program might gravitate toward because of the notoriety. So when he took over at Buffalo, ahead of the 2015 season, he brought Borland and Kotelnicki with him. And when he took over at Kansas, ahead of the 2021 season, he did the same thing.

“I think I remember he called me, Saturday after one of our playoff games,” Kotelnicki said about Leipold, referring back during the Wisconsin-Whitewater days. “He’s like, ‘I’m going to fly to Buffalo. I’m going to Buffalo, they’re going to offer me the job.’ I’m like, ‘All right.’ He’s like, ‘What do you think? Can we go do this?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’”

Kotelnicki and Borland both mentioned a level of uncertainty that came with the move to Buffalo, because in times of transition that’s always going to be there. Leipold could have elected to go another route with his hires. But Kotelnicki noted their relationship had grown to the point Leipold would communicate with him, and Borland said it was an easy decision to go once the offer came — he had about 24 hours to decide.

It went back to the fact Borland knew Leipold and knew what Leipold was about. Borland didn’t have an issue with the match they would make. And the challenge to test himself at a higher level of the sport, to see how he stacks up against the coaches whose names he’d hear about, stood out to Borland, too.

“I got the chance,” said Borland, who also likes the freedom Leipold allows him to have, “and so I jumped at it.”

After building for a few years at Buffalo, they took the Bulls to a bowl game during a 2018 season in which they won 10 games. They went to bowl games in the next two seasons, too, and won both of those. It was a run of success that helped set them up for the jump to Kansas — which Borland described as a little more “cloak and dagger” in how it came together than the move to Buffalo.

Kotelnicki didn’t know how rewarding it would feel to help be a part of a program’s turnaround, but it’s what they have been able to do with the Jayhawks as well. This season, they led to team to a second-straight year of bowl eligibility for the first time in more than a decade.

Deep into the season, they even had a real chance at competing for a Big 12 Conference championship.

“When we went to Whitewater, we never lost a game, and I was there those two years,” Kotelnicki said. “That’s a blast. Like, I’m like, ‘This is the pinnacle of professional satisfaction.’ And then we go to Buffalo and we turn it around. … People are like — the alumni come out and it’s like really rewarding. And then we came here and we’re doing it here, which we need to continue doing. And, like, waking up to echoes of Jayhawk nation is really fun.”

A look at what’s next

There have been times over the years when it was possible that the run the three have had together might not have been able to reach this point.

Leipold said Borland had opportunities to be a head coach at the Division III level while they were at Wisconsin-Whitewater. Borland mentioned the head coaching position at Wisconsin-Whitewater as one possibility, had he not followed Leipold to Buffalo. Borland also noted that, while he was at Wisconsin-Whitewater, he might have been able to move up a level and be a coordinator.

Kotelnicki said when the move to Kansas happened there was a discussion about potentially being the head coach at Buffalo that didn’t end up being meaningful. He does aspire to be a head coach someday. Leipold even moved proactively to ink Kotelnicki to a new contract last year.

But each time something could have happened, it didn’t — at least not yet.

Borland liked being at Wisconsin-Whitewater too much to make a move somewhere he wasn’t sure about, and he got to a point where he didn’t feel he needed to be a head coach. Kotelnicki doesn’t want to rush to become a head coach just to be one. And although he didn’t rule out leaving for something that isn’t a head coaching job, he also did so because he didn’t want to speak in absolutes.

How many more years they stick together will be determined in time. The way they’ve talked about their futures, it is possible Kansas fans could get more used to the trio than they already are.

Either way they’re enjoying themselves, and they’re enjoying coaching with each other.

“We’re professionally very happy here, and personally very happy here, so it’s — you can be a little more selective,” said Kotelnicki, who is now also the associate head coach for the Jayhawks.

Borland added: “I’m going to stay here as long as I’m going to be asked to stay here, and then I’m going to ride off into the sunset sometime. So, I can’t say exactly when that is. I know it’s not very far off. But it’s — I don’t think it’s tomorrow. So, I have no aspirations of — I’m not networking and trying to find the next big job opening and position myself for that. At my age and — if we were the No. 1 defense in the country it’d probably be different, but we’re not. So, at my age, and — I’m not looking to go anywhere.”

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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Lance Leipold, Andy Kotelnicki, Brian Borland keep sticking together