photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Journal-World photo

Kansas quarterback Jason Bean gets a block from guard Kobe Baynes and looks for a teammate downfield Friday, Sept. 1, 2023, against Missouri State.

Sixth-year senior quarterback Jason Bean started Friday’s game for Kansas, bringing an uneasy end to weeks of uncertainty — and a particularly intense 24 hours of speculation — surrounding the health of Jalon Daniels ahead of the season opener.

It had begun when Daniels, last year’s starter and the preseason Big 12 Conference offensive player of the year, was absent from the half-hour portion of practice open to media on Aug. 7. He returned the following day, but again didn’t take reps on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12.

As the days drew on, head coach Lance Leipold commented periodically on Daniels’ gradual progress, but didn’t express much concern about the injury, which he described as back tightness.

Still, he stopped short of making definitive statements about Daniels’ availability; asked at his game-week press conference Monday if Daniels would start, he referred to KU’s depth chart (on which Daniels was listed first), said Daniels had practiced fully that day, and added that the team would use everyone who was available.

Daniels took some sparse reps with the first-team offense before the game Friday, but Bean came out for the opening drive and completed three straight passes ahead of Devin Neal’s 48-yard touchdown. Bean then tossed his own first touchdown of the season to Luke Grimm early in the second quarter.

The missed start means another year without playing a full season for Daniels, who missed four games due to a shoulder injury during the stretch run of 2022. Daniels had worked with strength coach Matt Gildersleeve through the offseason in the hopes of becoming, as they put it, “bulletproof,” but did not get the chance to test his durability Friday.

KU ended its Liberty Bowl last season with Bean overthrowing Lawrence Arnold on a game-ending two-point conversion, but the onetime North Texas transfer opted to return — as Leipold put it during fall camp, “Face it, he was planning on leaving. He could have packed up, left town” — and ended up with a start in his very next game.

Friday night lights: The game was originally going to take place Thursday, but Kansas had to move it a day later as a condition of rescheduling its Week 2 Illinois game for Friday, which it did in order to get a solo prime-time window.

“It shouldn’t be any surprise that we haven’t gotten very many phone calls, invites to be on prime time, over many a year, quite frankly,” KU athletic director Travis Goff said in June. “And the young men in that program deserve a chance to play in front of what is really three, four, five, six, potentially ‘X’ times the eyeballs they’re going to get on a Week 2 Saturday.”

This is the third straight year that KU has had a Friday night opener, which dovetails with a growing trend of increased weeknight college football games, one that isn’t likely to stop any time soon. Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said at the conference’s media days in July that as part of its new media deal, it is exploring weeknight games on Thursdays and Fridays, and trying to weigh increased television exposure against the concerns of in-person fans.

“There’s a lot that goes into that decision,” he said, “… It’s not just about visibility, it is all about the fans and what’s right for our schools and their campuses, so all that is part of the consideration set in how we move forward.”

Hall of famers: Members of KU Athletics’ all-female 2023 hall of fame class (in honor of Title IX), which officially got inducted Wednesday night in a ceremony at Burge Union, were honored during breaks in Friday night’s game. The class includes Ainise Havili (volleyball), Nina Khmelnitckaia (tennis), Janet Koch (tennis), Kelsie Payne (volleyball), Anastasia Rychagova (tennis), Liana Salazar (soccer) and Lindsay Vollmer (track and field), to go along with the 2011-12 and 2012-13 women’s track and field teams, 2015 volleyball team and 2019 tennis team.

The only Heisman Trophy finalist in the history of KU football, quarterback David Jaynes, also turned up in Lawrence as part of the 1973 squad that made it to the Liberty Bowl. A Kansas native, Jaynes planned to play quarterback at Alabama for Bear Bryant until sitting in the stands at Allen Fieldhouse for a KU-Kansas State basketball game changed his mind. Jaynes, another KU Athletics Hall of Famer, left the school as its all-time passing leader (a mark now held by Todd Reesing).

This and that: Defensive coordinator Brian Borland was absent from the game tending to a personal matter, KU Athletics told reporters before the game, and so Jordan Peterson called the defense. Peterson has served in a variety of capacities since arriving in KU; this is his first season in the dual role of defensive backs coach and defensive pass game coordinator.

Missouri State running back Jacardia Wright rushed three times for four yards in a pair of previous appearances against KU during his tenure at Kansas State. By halftime, he had already more than quintupled that total with 22 yards (this time on 11 carries).

KU played against Missouri State for the first time since its first-ever win under former head coach Mark Mangino, back when its opponent was still known as Southwest Missouri State. Another former KU football head coach, Terry Allen, Mangino’s direct predecessor, later spent nine seasons as Missouri State’s head coach from 2006-2014.