What Kansas football coach Lance Leipold likes about the Jayhawks' 2023 Big 12 schedule

LAWRENCE — Kansas coach Lance Leipold expressed his appreciation last week for the fact that his college football team’s 2023 season will open on a Thursday.

The past two years, the first two of Leipold’s tenure leading the Jayhawks, Kansas opened on Fridays. Leipold noted that can be a problem, for one because it’s normally seen as a night for high school football. So, in addition to other benefits that would rank Thursday over Friday in his mind, he’s in favor of this change.

But Leipold, whose squad will face Missouri State on Aug. 31 at home, was reacting to that news as he also reacted to the release of the Jayhawks’ 2023 Big 12 Conference schedule. That revelation completed a slate that had already scheduled non-conference matchups against Missouri State, Illinois (Sept. 9, home) and Nevada (Sept. 16, away). And here are some takeaways from what Leipold said he liked about it:

Jayhawks will play more games at home than away

Kansas’ home games during Big 12 play come against BYU (Sept. 23), UCF (Oct. 7), Oklahoma (Oct. 28), Texas Tech (Nov. 11) and Kansas State (Nov. 18). Kansas’ away games during Big 12 play come against Texas (Sept. 30), Oklahoma State (Oct. 14), Iowa State (Nov. 4) and Cincinnati (Nov. 25). That means the Jayhawks have five games at home during conference play, compared to four on the road.

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Overall, that gives Kansas seven home games and five road games in 2023. It’s an opportunity for even more atmospheres like the Jayhawks experienced inside David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium in 2022, when they had three sellouts and welcomed ESPN’s “College GameDay” show to Lawrence for the first time ever. And, for Leipold, that is something worth highlighting.

Kansas football won’t have back-to-back road games

Playing back-to-back road games has come with its share of success and failure in the early years of Leipold’s tenure. In 2021, it happened twice — Kansas lost back-to-back games against Duke and Iowa State, and later on that fall won at Texas before losing at TCU the week after. In 2022, Kansas won back-to-back games against West Virginia and Houston, and later on that fall lost back-to-back games against Oklahoma and Baylor. But it seems Leipold would prefer not to have a schedule play out that way, and the way the Big 12 slate plays out it won’t in 2023.

It turns out, actually, that in 2023 there will be two different times the Jayhawks will play back-to-back games at home. That comes first, with the opening weeks against Missouri State and Illinois. And later on in November, it’ll happen again with the games against Texas Tech and Kansas State.

Kansas’ bye week comes earlier in 2023 than it did in 2022

Last season, Kansas’ bye week didn’t come until the Jayhawks had already played eight games. This season, though, it’ll come after they’ve played seven. And that came as good news to Leipold.

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Kansas will also be able to come out of the bye week with a home game in 2023, like it did in 2022. Last season, the Jayhawks seemed to play like a team that benefited from that time off when they beat Oklahoma State to earn that pivotal sixth win on the way to a bowl game. Time will tell if the Jayhawks’ Oct. 28 game against Oklahoma this year will hold the same type of significance.

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 likes these parts of KU football's Big 12 schedule