Former OC Andy Kotelnicki returning to Kansas football coaching staff
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LAWRENCE — After spending the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator at Penn State, Andy Kotelnicki is returning to Kansas football as the program’s associate head coach.
KU head coach Lance Leipold announced that news Friday, Jan. 2, as the Jayhawks have continued to make their way through this offseason — including the currently open transfer portal. Kotelnicki has been a part of Leipold’s stops not just at Kansas, but Buffalo and Wisconsin-Whitewater as well. Their time coaching together spans more than a decade.
“We are excited to welcome Andy and his family back to Lawrence,” Leipold said in a KU release. “Andy is familiar with our staff and culture, has run successful offenses for nearly two decades, and his experience over the past two seasons at Penn State will add to our program in a variety of ways. Having worked with Andy for 11 years, I’m looking forward to him rejoining this current staff as associate head coach.”
Kotelnicki added: “I care deeply about the University of Kansas, and my family and I are thrilled to be back at a university that has been so good to us. Working alongside Coach Leipold has been one of the highlights of my career, and I’m excited to rejoin him and the entire staff at KU. I’m very grateful to Coach, Athletic Director Travis Goff and Chancellor Doug Girod for welcoming us back. I can’t wait to get to work.”
Kotelnicki, who helped Penn State to a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance during his first year with that program, was also a part of a pair of bowl-eligible seasons with Kansas in 2022 and 2023 — back-to-back appearances that hadn’t occurred in more than a decade at KU. Stars of those offenses those two years included quarterback like Jalon Daniels and Jason Bean, among others like running back Devin Neal. According to this release, those two years featured “two of the three highest scoring offenses in program history with the 2022 squad averaging 35.6 points per game and the 2023 team averaging 34.8,” only adding to the enthusiasm that has built up concerning his return.
Kotelnicki, whose move back comes amid the coaching change at Penn State in his second year with that program, helped Leipold and company through the early years of a rebuild in Lawrence that began in 2021. The offense’s creativity helped draw fans in, and made games intriguing to watch. For a program that’s gone 5-7 in back-to-back years in 2024 and 2025, and will look to bounce back in 2026 both offensively and elsewhere, the influence Kotelnicki can have was always going to be worth exploring.
“Yessir!” Goff said, in part, in a social media post on X. “Welcome back AK. Let’s get after it!”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Former OC Andy Kotelnicki returning to Kansas football coaching staff
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