From Lawrence to London: HC Lance Leipold on his journey and leading the Kansas Jayhawks to Wembley in 2026

If you haven't already heard, college football is heading to London when the Kansas Jayhawks face the Arizona State Sun Devils at Wembley Stadium in 2026 in the Union Jack Classic.

Whether you’ve followed college football for years or you’re seeing it for the first time, the Union Jack Classic is your chance to feel everything that makes Saturdays in the States special, "reimagined for a British stage" as the event website points out.

Ahead of the big game on September 19, 2026, DAZN's Simon Carroll travelled to Lawrence to meet Jayhawks' head coach Lance Leipold and experience the gameday atmosphere that’s set to make its way across the pond.

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Program Builder

“I think you really need to look at moving on after this season.”

Leipold has known nothing other than college football his entire adult life. A quarterback at Wisconsin-Whitewater, he hung up his cleats in 1987 and immediately stepped into a coaching role.

Twenty years later, he returned to his alma mater, having worked his way up to head coach, a position that only two people had held at that school for the past half a century.

“I really thought that at Wisconsin Whitewater, I would be the third coach for 75 total years. And it would be a 20+ year run and then fade away into the sunset.”

Six Division III championships in eight seasons scuppered that thought process. Leipold’s personal ambitions have never been centred around prestige, status, or ‘moving up the ranks’ - he measures satisfaction with different metrics.

But success attracts interest. Director Danny White, then Athletics Director at the University of Buffalo (now AD at Tennessee), sounded Leipold out about potentially making the leap to the FBS as the Bulls head coach.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t think I could pass up.”

Six seasons in Upstate New York followed. Buffalo, a small program in the MAC conference, would enjoy similar success that UW-Whitewater did under Leipold’s stewardship; being bowl-eligible for four straight seasons and even finishing ranked in the Top 25 in 2020 - unheard of for the school.

Then, that offseason, Leipold’s wife dropped the bombshell; it was time for him to find another challenge.

“She said, ‘you don't seem to be as motivated and stimulated as you were’. And she was right. One of the reasons for that was our culture at UB was in such a good spot that we had really become a player-led team. We had achieved what we set out to.”

Two stops, two successes; Leipold was ready to take the next step. But it had to be the right fit, a project that would appeal to a program builder. And 1,000 miles away back in his native Midwest, the perfect vacancy had just opened.

A New Era

The University of Kansas is home to 30,000 students, of whom 640 are student-athletes. It’s a school that has a proud athletic history, but football was certainly at a low ebb when Leipold came to town.

The Jayhawks had won more than seven games in a season just once since 1995, and the previous three coaches had a combined record of 21-108 in the past eleven years.

Make no mistake, this was a hard place to win.

But that didn’t put off Leipold, who had embraced a similar challenge at Buffalo.

“When the Kansas job came open, I knew it had gone through more than a decade of tough times. And I was like, you know, this kind of fits what we do.

"Why not take a swing at it? Try to get something done that people didn't think could get done; taking over probably the most struggling Power Five football job at the time, and see if our way of doing it would work. And we've had some success.”

‘Some success’ is a typically humble comment from Leipold, who has overseen an era of change in Lawrence. By year two, he had taken the Jayhawks to a bowl game, and in year three, he won nine games and had Kansas in the national rankings. The hiring of Leipold was one of AD Travis Goff’s first jobs at KU, and Leipold was sold on a recommitment to football:

“It’s extremely important that the athletic director, the chancellor who runs the university, and the head coach have that alignment.

"Doug Chirod, the chancellor, has been awesome in understanding the importance of college football to this campus and this university. Without that alignment between the three of us, things would be very difficult.”

Widely known as a successful basketball school, Kansas’ football program is quickly catching up. Under Leipold’s watch, the Jayhawks are no longer the doormat of the Big 12 and are primed to embrace a moment in college football where resources are critical to compete.

College Football Comes to London

In 2026, college football expands its international footprint, playing a game at Wembley Stadium for the very first time. The ‘Union Jack Classic’ will see the Kansas Jayhawks and Arizona State Sun Devils face off in a Big 12 matchup.

A long proponent for taking college football outside of the US, Leipold is excited for the opportunity ahead:

“For our players and those at other schools, many of them barely get a chance to travel. And for them to see a different culture and see a different country, embrace it and not just be there for 36 hours; we're going to have a chance to expose our players and our fans who travel over to a life-changing experience that they will talk about the rest of their lives.”

The UJC found willing dance partners in the Big 12 and Kansas to be the first hosts of a Wembley game. Coach Leipold envisions some long-term benefits from being the inaugural home team for such a historic occasion:

“Being the first ones, hopefully someone's going to become a loyal Jayhawk fan because of it, and it will become their college team.

"Hopefully, they'll buy their first KU sweatshirt or their first Jayhawk t-shirt. Then, as this continues to cycle, we'll be a team that could come back, and we can start building that fan base.”

Part of the drive to bring a college game to London is to expose football fans in the UK to everything that goes into a Saturday gameday in America. So what can fans expect to be a part of on September 19th next year?

“We’ll bring the traditions; the ‘Rock Chalk’ chant is a neat ritual before the game. Then, hopefully, when we’re winning, we’ll ‘wave the wheat’ when we score touchdowns.

There’s so much pageantry of a college game with marching bands and tailgating; it’s a different experience to a professional football game. The youthfulness of the sport - there’s so many things the fans will embrace in this first Union Jack Classic.”

Finishing Strong

Sitting at 5-5 on the season, Kansas are one win away from bowl eligibility. If they can beat either Iowa State or Utah it would be the third time Leipold has played postseason football with the Jayhawks in five years; Mark Mangino (2002-2009) is the only head coach in KU history to have been to more bowl games.

Leipold is fully aware of the benefits of playing football in December/January:

“It's an accomplishment, a feat that equates itself to success… It gives your university and your football program another chance for exposure on national and international television when there's not many other games on.

"Alumni and fanbases travel to these destinations, most of which are in big cities or scenic places. It’s another way to build and promote your program.”

In the world of a 12-team playoff, making a standard bowl game may be considered the minimum requirement for some schools with lofty ambitions. But in the ultra-competitive Big 12 conference, where any team can win on any given weekend, getting to six wins is tough.

Leipold embraces the challenges that being in a conference with parity brings:

“It’s become so well balanced. After we lost Texas & Oklahoma to the SEC, we added four schools from the West that fit the profile well.

"Then four schools from the Group of Five that are from metropolitan areas with very good recruiting bases or have unique characteristics… We've carved this niche of a competitive, top to bottom, powerful conference. It’s exciting.”

For now, Leipold’s full attention will be on finishing the season strong and delivering another winning record to Lawrence. But with the program growing and international ambitions in 2026, the future looks bright for the Kansas Jayhawks.