To an outsider, the Jayhawks may look in rough shape heading into next season.
The biggest reason why? No starting quarterback has been identified heading into week one, which starts in well under two weeks. And head coach Lance Leipold has repeatedly said it is most likely the Jayhawks will use two quarterbacks: redshirt junior Cole Ballard and redshirt sophomore Isaiah Marshall.
Associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki has looked at this battle between Marshall and Ballard in a different light, one that sees the two fighting for team, rather than against one another.
“It is going really good. I'm proud of both of those guys. They're awesome. They're competing really, really well, and they're continuing to get better,” opened Kotelnicki at media day.
If you are looking towards the experience factor, Ballard provides more with 64 attempts in his time with KU. Ballard has registered 445 yards through the air to go along with 3 touchdowns and 4 interceptions on a 54.7% completion rate during his three years with the program. Ballard also adds 209 rushing yards, including 92 that came last season.
Marshall meanwhile has just three passes to his name for a grand total of 28 yards. Marshall’s biggest strength so far has been on the ground, where he has added 160 yards in 2025.
“… A lot of times people will, you know, they'll have diverse reactions to it, and they'll allow animosity to grow between individuals and kind of root for the other guy to fail, and that's not happening at all with them.”
Earlier this month, passing game coordinator Jim Zebrowski spoke on the friendship the pair have developed.
“And I've said before in that room, when you have competition in that room, which is a really, really important room, of course, and our football team can see those two individuals, handling it really, really well, and it's making both of them better, and no one can debate that. That's really healthy for a football team,” finished Kotelnicki.
There is one silver lining to this situation
If the Jayhawks are going to be in a place where both quarterbacks are used, then fine, but they will have to jump through the aforementioned list of obstacles at the start of this piece. If there is one thing going for this battle, it is that there will be few better staffs with better continuity than the Jayhawks.
Kotelnicki and Leipold have worked together since 2013 (barring his two-year split to Penn State), and Zebrowski worked with Leipold for two seasons at Wisconsin-Whitewater from 2007-09 before rejoining the pair at Buffalo in 2017. Over the offseason, Kansas also added John DeFilippo, an experienced offensive analyst, to the room with 25 years under his belt.
While this isn’t an ideal situation, it's where Kansas is at, and the bottom line is, the offense overall looks a lot more settled than years past, with an explosive running back corps and a wideout room looking to supplement whatever struggles may come at quarterback. Only time will tell how this battle will shape out.
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