Kansas running back Ke'aun Kinner breaks away from the defense during practice on Monday, Aug. 10, 2015.

Given that Kansas University running backs Taylor Cox and De’Andre Mann are coming off significant injuries that kept them out of portions of the 2014 season, the Jayhawks could be required to rely on a couple of newcomers to handle a good chunk of the work in the running game this fall.

Luckily, included in that group is a 5-foot-9, 185-pound transfer from Navarro Junior College who has never been afraid to carry the load for his team.

Although he joined the Jayhawks late in the recruiting process after turning down an offer from Iowa, Ke’aun (pronounced Key-on) Kinner went through spring practices, giving him enough of a foundation to carry a ton of confidence into the 2015 season.

For Kinner, carrying things has never been that tough of a task.

In one game his senior season at Little Elm (Texas) High, Kinner carried the ball 55 times and surpassed the 330-yard mark during a four-point loss to Prosper High. The next week, Kinner added a couple of totes to that tally and finished with 345 yards on 57 carries in a win over Frisco Wakeland.

“At the beginning of the season, our quarterback went down, so I had to step up,” Kinner recalled matter-of-factly. “And those games, those weeks, I just got the ball more.”

It’s unlikely that any 50-plus-carry weeks await the 2014 National Junior College Athletic Association Offensive Player of the Year at Kansas, but that has not stopped Kinner from preparing for such games just in case.

In late July, when players went home for one final break between summer conditioning and the start of preseason camp, Kinner was the only one who returned looking better than he did when he left. KU coach David Beaty said Kinner added five pounds — nearly all of it muscle — and made it clear that he had not relaxed one bit.

“These guys don’t get a lot of time off,” Beaty said. “So I tell ’em, ‘Get away, go have fun, take a deep breath.’ But the real pros, they can’t step away. And I think he’s one of those guys.”

Why did he hit it so hard with his uncle in south Texas during the break?

“Too much at stake,” he said.

Asked to elaborate, his serious nature became even more evident.

“The season,” he said. “I’m trying to do some things here. From what I’ve heard, you know, I’m a big piece to the team. So I’m trying to live up to it.”

It’s not just Kinner’s skills and past success that make him an easy player to identify as an important part of the offense this season. Running-backs coach Reggie Mitchell, who called Kinner “under-recruited,” said the young back’s versatility and ability to run, catch and protect the quarterback in passing situations made him the ideal player to have in any offense.

“(His versatility) does a lot because then you don’t have to substitute guys in,” Mitchell said of Kinner, whom he called a hybrid between former KU backs James Sims and Tony Pierson. “It makes the coordinator’s job easier.”

The funny thing about Kinner’s triple-threat prowess is that he actually has another dimension that has seldom been seen.

“We had a trick pass, RB back to the quarterback,” Kinner said as if telling a secret. “I did that one time. Sixty yards.”