KU Jayhawks football has changed up practice routine to address this recent issue

Kansas coach Lance Leipold took some solace — at least a little — while watching ESPN’s SportsCenter earlier this week.

Leipold saw the network highlight an NFL play where an offensive player broke seven tackles on a long play.

One of the biggest issues facing KU’s current football team, then — tackling — is at least one that even professional coaches are battling daily.

“It’s a concern across the board,” Leipold said Tuesday. “We have to be better at it.”

The numbers show Leipold has good reason to be troubled about his team’s most recent outing.

Pro Football Focus logged KU with 16 missed tackles in last week’s 45-7 home loss to Baylor. To give some context, Leipold’s previous team, Buffalo, has combined for 19 missed tackles in its three games this season.

That comparison is likely to provide both hope and discouragement for KU fans. For one, it means Leipold’s staff was at least part of developing Buffalo’s defense into one of the most sure-tackling units in the nation this season.

But it also means this KU team has a long way to go.

“Sometimes (missed tackles) has to do with, unfortunately, experience and youth and physicality and strength,” Leipold said. “But we’ve got to do better.”

Leipold said the poor tackling is enough of a problem that it’s led to some modifications in KU’s practices.

KU defensive coordinator Brian Borland says each defensive position group is going through a daily regimen that re-emphasizes tackling fundamentals. That includes using proper pursuit angles, maintaining good positioning and getting one’s body ready for contact.

“It’s not just, ‘We’ve got to tackle better.’ That’s easy to say,” Borland said. “You’ve got to have some specific information for guys. So we’ve identified some things that are consistent things that trip us up.”

Some other keys, Borland says, are for his guys to keep their feet moving at contact with offensive players while also keeping their pad level low.

“There’s a lot of good examples in a game where you can say that, ‘That looks like it should look,’” Borland said of his team’s tackling technique. “It just, obviously, didn’t look enough that way last week.”

Borland says coaches aren’t complacent when looking for potential solutions. He said in addition to using practice exercises that have worked for him in the past, he’s also had recent discussions with friends in the coaching industry about how they’ve improved when facing similar challenges.

Leipold says because teams are hitting less in practice than they did years ago, teaching tackling is likely more difficult than it once was.

That goes back to his original point, though: Most football coaches are in this same situation.

And regardless of obstacles, KU’s defenders need to continue to improve.

“Our missed tackles and yards after contact are not where they need to be,” Leipold said, “and it’s being talked about and addressed daily.”