Kansas football: Jason Bean to start vs. UCF as Jalon Daniels’ injury lingers

Jason Bean will start his second consecutive game for Kansas football as Jalon Daniels continues to rehab from his lingering back injury.

According to Brett McMurphy of The Action Network, the Kansas Jayhawks will roll out Jason Bean as their starting quarterback for the third time of the year. The North Texas transfer has thrown for 412 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions on a 63.3% completion percentage across his two full outings.

Star signal caller Jalon Daniels was expected to play last week against No. 3 Texas, but he was a late scratch after he reaggravated a back injury that forced him to miss Week 1. He had been dealing with it all season, but it became too much for him to bear. Lance Leipold told the media he had missed the first two practices of the week and ‘hasn’t done a lot’ during walkthroughs.

While McMurphy confirmed that Bean will begin the game under center, he did not rule out Daniels entirely. The report suggests that Kansas football will determine his availability for the contests before kickoff.

If you’ve been following the situation closely, this should come as no surprise. Nothing suggested that Daniels was ready to return this week, and the likelihood is that we won’t see him until after the bye week against Oklahoma. However, it is encouraging to see that the staff is still holding out hope that he can contribute in some way.

READ: Why Jayhawks fans should remain confident in Jason Bean

Last week, Daniels was absent from the sidelines as he worked with trainers in the tunnel to return to the game. We could see a similar scenario go down against the Gus Malzahn-led Knights.

Betting lines for the game have altered significantly since the news released. The previous spread was -1.5 Kansas, but most sportsbooks now have it at -1 UCF. There have also been rumors that John Rhys Plumlee will return for UCF in some capacity.