If you ever find yourself at camp with the University of Kansas football team and you’re hoping to catch the eyes of your coaches, you’d do well to focus on three key things — effort, trust and consistency.
That was the advice given by veteran Jayhawks Calvin Clements, Leyton Cure and Carson Bruhn last Friday, when asked by R1S1 Sports how they or their teammates have been able to stand out at recent preseason camps, including this one.
The reason for the question?
Earlier in the day, KU coach Lance Leipold heaped heavy praise on second-year offensive lineman DeAndre Harper, a former transfer from Northwest Missouri State who appeared in one game for the Jayhawks a season ago.
As he talked about the makeup of the O-Line and broke down the way the Kansas coaches had gone about identifying the five best linemen in the program, Leipold mentioned Harper as a player who is “going to be hard to keep off the field.”
When told the next day that Leipold had talked up Harper, Clements — the Jayhawks’ starting left tackle — nodded in agreement and said he was not in any way surprised by the praise because he, too, had heard and seen it himself.
“It’s an effort thing,” Clements said when asked why players tend to stand out at camp. “I think first and foremost, coach likes to praise Dre’s effort because he plays very hard. But, obviously, that has to be coupled with doing the right thing and doing the right technique. If you really want to excel, you play as hard as you can and you do it right and then the technique and how you do it is where you kind of seal it up.”
One of the things that Leipold likes about Harper is his versatility. In reality, the ability to play multiple positions is an advantage for just about any and every player on the KU roster who can do it. So, the 6-foot-6, 320-pound lineman’s capacity to play both guard and tackle makes him a valuable commodity.
“When he gets on people, they have trouble getting off of him, and he's versatile and athletic enough to play inside or out,” Leipold said of the Omaha native now in his third season of college football. “So, he's gonna continue to make his impact in this as well, and we're gonna have to find ways to get him some snaps.”
"It's gonna be hard to keep him off the field... He's gonna continue to make his impact in this and we're gonna have to find ways to get him some snaps.”
— KU coach Lance Leipold on Offensive Lineman DeAndre Harper
While effort can often top the list of what makes players stand out, a few other Jayhawks pointed to other traits, as well. Both are tied to effort in that you can’t really have one without the other. But there are elements of each that stand out on their own.
“I think the biggest thing they want to see is consistency,” 3rd-year tight end Bruhn told R1S1 Sports. “You can show these flashes, but then if you turn around and you bust a play and mess up, it’s hard for them to trust you. So, I think consistency is the biggest thing they’re looking for and Dre’s shown that.”
When you play hard and give great effort and couple that with consistent production day after day, that usually leads to another important trait that helps players stand out. This one was at the top of Cure’s list
“I think it’s just developing a bigger trust with your coaches,” the KU tight end said. “Sometimes that’s eliminating as many mental errors as possible and (showing) that you still know what to do when the picture changes.”
Cure added: “Everybody’s gonna flash during practice, and it’s probably even harder as an offensive lineman. But Dre’s been rotating with different groups and working really hard; he’ll be a really good player when his time comes, if it’s this year or in the coming years.”
Trust, some of Harper's teammates say, is a two-way street.
“We’ve talked about trust between players and coaches,” Bruhn said. “Coaches have to trust that we’re gonna get our jobs done, but we also have to trust that coach knows what he’s talking about. When he’s teaching a technique or he’s calling a play, we have to trust him.”
Harper’s ability to move between positions and be effective with the reps he gets at both has given the KU coaches reason to believe that his performance may be more than just a flash.
Leipold made it clear that he’s seen that. But so, too, has offensive line coach Daryl Agpalsa.
“In our room, it's a matter of consistency,” Agpalsa said. “Playing at a high level, all the time, it's not easy. At the end of the day, he's still a young player, so when you talk about fundamentals, you talk about assignment sharp, there's always things we can clean up with him, and he'll continue to improve in that facet.
Agpalsa continued: “He has a lot of great natural tools. And he's been a pleasure. He's been a blessing, and he's worked really, really hard to take the steps that he needed to show because he is a talented young man. In the last nine practices, he's continued to elevate even from the spring, and that’s great because it just creates more competition within the room.”
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