LAWRENCE — Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold has not faced Arizona State yet during his tenure as the Jayhawks’ head coach.

Leipold’s Big 12 Conference schedule has featured numerous other opponents since he took over at KU in 2021. His non-conference schedule has done the same. In fact, this is Arizona State’s first season in the Big 12 since it made the switch from the Pac-12 Conference ahead of this fall.

But just because Arizona State is unfamiliar in that respect, doesn’t mean Leipold is unfamiliar with the rise his upcoming opponent Saturday is attempting to make. Arizona State (3-1, 0-1 in Big 12) is led by a second-year head coach in Kenny Dillingham, who’s attempting a quick turnaround after a 3-9 season in 2023. After Leipold’s Kansas squad went 2-10 in 2021, it went on to reach a bowl game for the first time in more than a decade and finish 6-7 in 2022.

Kansas football releases depth chart for Arizona State, Big 12 Conference game in Week 6

“I think there’s going to always be teams,” Leipold said, “especially in today’s ability to improve your roster in a lot of different ways at different times, that you’re going to surpass expectations.”

Leipold understands teams can fall short of expectations, too. It’s what can make college football a tough sport to predict. It’s why there can be games across the sport from week to week where surprises happen that wouldn’t have been anticipated before the season began.

But Arizona State’s trajectory this fall looks significantly different than Kansas’, after these two programs entered the season with vastly different expectations. The Big 12’s preseason media poll projected Arizona State would finish last in the 16-team league, and while it's lost its lone Big 12 game so far — Texas Tech (away) — it also has wins against Wyoming (home), Mississippi State (home) and Texas State (away). That same poll projected Kansas (1-4, 0-2), a team that's only beaten Lindenwood (home) and lost against Illinois (away), UNLV (home), West Virginia (away) and TCU (home), would finish fourth.

Kansas’ resurgence in 2022 didn’t come without its obstacles, as after a 5-0 start that included a pair of Big 12 wins the Jayhawks only won one game the rest of the regular season before a loss in a bowl game. Kansas could be an obstacle for Arizona State, as Arizona State progresses through 2024. But this game has become a challenge it wouldn’t have been viewed as publicly over the summer, and in addition to needing to step up, the Jayhawks will look to do so in weather that likely will force them to deal with heat.

“I think we’ve been pretty intentional all along about hydration and those things,” Leipold said. “Our strength staff, nutrition staff, have done — emphasized it. It’s a little different. I don’t know, it’s supposed to be a dry heat, right? Whatever that means, 100 is 100. Yeah, we’re going to have to be as healthy as we can be and rotate guys. So, we were down to Austin last year, I think once you’re above 90 it’s pretty darn hot all the way around. So, it’ll be a challenge, but we can’t let it get to us.”

Jordan Guskey covers the University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas football's Lance Leipold notes similarity with Arizona State