Kansas football: Defense will need to stop CJ Marable this Saturday

Kansas football’s defense wasn’t great last season, but they’ll need to do their best this Saturday to stop Coastal Carolina running back CJ Marable.

Last season, running back CJ Marable torched Kansas football for 148 rushing yards and two touchdowns in Coastal Carolina’s win over the Jayhawks. He went on to rush for over 1,000 yards on the season and score 11 touchdowns. He’s on the Sun Belt Preseason All-Conference Team and if Kansas is going to get the win, they want to stop the Coastal Carolina run-game.

Despite the Jayhawks losing multiple seniors on the defensive side of the ball from 2019, it’ll be hard for Kansas to be much worse than they were last year. The good news is that linebacker Dru Prox should be back after being injured early last season. A lot of different guys like Gavin Potter also got good experience last season, so hopefully the defense can improve upon the 2019 squad.

That being said, this game against Coastal Carolina should be a good test for the Jayhawk defense. Marable is a solid back, but if Kansas can force the Chanticleers to rely on their air attack that’d be good for the Jayhawks.

The Coastal Carolina quarterback situation is up in the air right now. The two contenders for the job are Fred Payton and Bryce Carpenter, both of whom played QB for the Chanticleers last season due to Payton sustaining an injury. Coastal Carolina head coach Jamey Chadwell said that he believed they were close to finding their starter back in early August, but no announcement has been made yet.

There seems to still be some uncertainty over who the starter will be this season, making it all the more desirable to put pressure on whoever the starter is in their first game of the season. If Kansas can contain Marable, there may be no choice for the Chanticleers other than to put the ball in the air.