Travis Goff and Lance Leipold share their vision for Kansas football during Salina visit

SALINA — The star attraction during the University of Kansas Alumni Association's Hawks & Highways tour stop at The Garage, wasn't so much the notable guests as an inanimate object.

But while Jayhawk fans queued up to have their pictures taken with KU's 2022 national basketball championship trophy, the greatest focus in the room soon shifted to football.

The fact that second-year coach Lance Leipold was on hand surely had something to do with it, but so did the fact that in the current climate of conference realignment and television rights, football is the engine that drives most athletic departments.

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Needless to say, for all its basketball success, KU's recent track record in the most important revenue-generating sport has been less than stellar. But it's something the university, from chancellor Douglas Girod to athletics director Travis Goff on down, are determined to change.

"It's just the confluence of issues and timing," said Goff, who also made the tour stop in Salina. "It is a known fact that KU has long needed to get football healthy and vibrant. With these other factors in play — there's a lot of them (and) it's not just the conference situation — it just reaffirms that if you don't get football healthy and vibrant, you're really going to take on a lot of risk and some added challenges the way in which intercollegiate athletics is evolving.

"That's not a KU dynamic. That's across the country, and ultimately we have an incredible upside in this program."

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KU plans $350 million renovation to David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium

Part of the plan for rebuilding the football program is an ambitious $350 million renovation to David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. In the spring, the Kansas Board of Regents included the two-phase project as part of its capital improvement requests for fiscal 2024 and the next five years.

But KU has been down this path before in the past dozen years, with the promise of major stadium improvements ultimately crumbling under a lack of funding. So what makes Goff think this time will be different?

"It starts with it being an institutional priority, something that the chancellor is committed to," Goff said. "One of the differences of course is historically that has maybe been — not just at KU but a variety of places — an athletics challenge to try to overcome.

"You think about economic impact, you think about driving enrollment and you think about the multi-use opportunities that these kinds of facilities provide, then it's easy to go, 'This is an institutional asset.'"

Ever since Mark Mangino resigned under pressure after the 2009 season, KU football has seen a revolving door of head coaches. Leipold is the fifth to hold the position since 2010, not counting Clint Bowen's interim stint in 2014.

But Goff believes he has found a keeper in Leipold, who won three Division III national titles at Wisconsin-Whitewater and, before coming to Kansas, completed a successful three-year rebuild at Buffalo.

"We needed to get the right head coach at the helm who was going to build it in a sustainable manner," Goff said.

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That, he added, makes raising money for the stadium project an easier sell.

"The difference now, without hesitation I would tell you, is the way Lance Leipold is going about this build," Goff said. "It gives us nothing but confidence that we are going to build a program that will warrant this kind of major investment, and that the return on that investment will be there."

Leipold, in turn, has been encouraged by the support he received from the start.

"I think many times when you take over a job and you go through things, you want alignment, of course, with your athletic director," Leipold said. "But then you're hoping even above that, to your chancellor.

"Chancellor Girod has been amazing through this process and understands that facility improvement in football and football success improvement is going to be very important to really the University of Kansas and our region."

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Conference realignment puts more pressure on KU football to succeed

With the volatility surrounding the Big 12 and other major conferences, football has moved front and center, Goff said, and KU can't afford to be left behind.

"Making that kind of investment in the stadium is a very tangible statement from KU about how important football is, so that's one aspect," he said. "I talk about multi-use, and this is a facility and project that should really drive value across the institution.

"And at the end of the day … we've got to provide a better first-class experience for KU fans, and of course we've got to grow attendance and those things. It's gotten more competitive. It's easier to sit on the couch in front of the mega-big screen and there's great facilities all over the place, so we've got to be in that game."

Leipold is well aware that upgrading facilities alone is not enough. Ultimately fans will judge the program by its on-the-field success. The Jayhawks finished 2-10 last year in his first season, but picked up an impressive victory at Texas and showed steady improvement from the first game to the last.

To that end, recruiting success, particularly in the state of Kansas, is paramount.

"We're dealing with an age group of high school players right now that since they were 4 of 5 years old really haven't seen much success in KU football, and that's what they've grown up with," Leipold said. "We've got to change it, but we believe by persistence and in relationship-building as well as showing improvement on the field, we'll be able to start doing a better job locally."

And of course giving them a nice place to play and the fans an attractive stadium in which to cheer the team on doesn't hurt.

"It has become a priority, and we continue to work on it," Leipold said. "That's going to be exciting and a difference-maker as we move forward."

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas football determined to upgrade stadium in the near future