Marshall named Kansas' starting quarterback
Isaiah Marshall beat out Cole Ballard and Rice transfer Chase Jenkins for QB1, and Kansas opens the season Friday against a Long Island University team that just made North Dakota sweat.
Marshall gets the keys, and Ballard says he's happy for him
Kansas has its answer at quarterback. Redshirt sophomore Isaiah Marshall was named the starter for the September 4 opener against Long Island University, edging redshirt senior Cole Ballard and Rice transfer Chase Jenkins in a competition that ran through camp, according to On3's Pete Nakos and Yahoo Sports/Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel. Marshall's case was built in relief work last season — nine game appearances, all three of his pass attempts completed, and 160 yards on 15 carries, including a 43-yard scramble against Oklahoma State — the profile of a runner the staff wanted under center over a pure passer. Offensive coordinator Jim Zebrowski's read on the room, via KUSports.com: the two remain close, calling it "a great competition" between players who "have become really close friendship-wise."
The competition thinned before it ever really opened. David McComb, the Kansas transfer who might have pushed Marshall hardest, is instead starting for somebody else: Miami (Ohio) named him its Week 1 quarterback for a season that opens at Pitt, per On3's Pete Nakos. That puts even more weight on Marshall's legs, and it lands at an awkward time — Covers' injury table has running back J. Thurman listed Out for the rest of the season with an undisclosed injury, reported earlier this month. Marshall doesn't just start Friday against Long Island University; he becomes the swing piece of a backfield that lost a passer and a runner in the same summer.
Last season ended on a four-game skid, capped by Utah
Kansas is 0-0 to start 2026, but the way last season finished still frames this opener. The Jayhawks were run over by Kansas State, 42-17, on October 25, rebounded to beat Oklahoma State 38-21 on November 1, then lost three straight to close the year — 24-20 at Arizona, 38-14 at Iowa State, and finally 31-21 to Utah in Lawrence on November 28. That stretch, one win in the final four games, is the season Marshall is stepping into as the new starter.
None of that record travels into 2026 — it's 0-0 by the calendar, not by anything this team has done this fall — but a program that watched last season come apart late is part of why a run-first quarterback now has the job, and why Friday's home date with an FCS opponent is being treated less like a formality and more like a soft landing for him.
Kansas hired a GM, and it isn't just for basketball
Late in July, Kansas made an athletic-department hire that will eventually touch every roster in Lawrence, football included. Sam Strantz, formerly senior team counsel for the NBA's Houston Rockets, was named Kansas' Executive Director of Front Office Strategy and Operations — a first-of-its-kind post reporting directly to athletic director Travis Goff, first reported by Yahoo Sports/Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel. On3 put the job plainly: "essentially a centralized general manager for the athletic department."
The timing lines up with the sport as much as the school. Strantz's background is cap management, roster construction and transaction execution — skills built for a pro front office and now imported into a college landscape where revenue-sharing and the portal have made roster building look more like an NBA job every year. It won't touch who starts at quarterback Friday, but it's the hire a fan should clock now, because by the time Kansas is picking its next quarterback, this office will have had a hand in it.
Kansas opens at home against a Long Island team that already made one favorite sweat
Kansas opens Friday night vs. Long Island University at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium — Marshall's first start, in front of a home crowd. Long Island is walking in 0-1, having lost 21-42 at North Dakota on August 27, but the Sharks weren't blown out so much as slow to start: down big at the half, they answered with a 21-0 second-half run, and quarterback Luca Stanzani finished 12 of 16 with a 65-yard touchdown throw. It's a losing record with a pulse, not a pushover on paper, whatever the final score says about Friday.
There's a bigger date right behind this one. Missouri comes to Lawrence on September 11, and the board already has a number on it: Kansas opened as an underdog, with the line set at Missouri -6.5 and the total at a middling 52.5. That's the game that will actually test what Marshall's offense is — Friday is just the tune-up.