photo by: Missy Minear/Kansas Athletics

Kansas center Bryce Foster prepares to block against D.J. Withers on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Lawrence.

If Kansas center Bryce Foster is a race car, then, as offensive line coach Daryl Agpalsa puts it, the restrictor plates are now off.

As of Friday’s practice, the 13th overall of KU’s fall training camp, it’s full speed ahead for Foster. The coaching staff has gradually ramped him up since the conclusion of the first four-practice cycle of training camp.

“We feel really good with where he’s at and where he’s headed, and we’re excited about the type of season he’s going to have,” Agpalsa said.

Foster spoke to the media on Friday, after he was previously slated to do so at Big 12 media days but was instead a late scratch due to having recently undergone what head coach Lance Leipold called a “cleanup” medical procedure. Foster said he was excited to be back in action.

“I’m full go,” he said. “I kind of got into more of the one-on-ones, I think, the second cycle, and then the third cycle I kind of got into the game situation stuff, and now I’m full go.”

Much is expected of Foster in his second year as KU’s starting center. The Katy, Texas, native opted to come back to Lawrence for his fifth collegiate season, and has been rewarded with a preseason All-Big 12 selection (the only one the Jayhawks garnered) and inclusions on several preseason award watchlists — the Rimington Trophy for the nation’s top center (as announced on Friday) and the Outland Trophy for the nation’s top interior lineman.

That all came after the Texas A&M transfer played a team-high 764 snaps in 2024 and finished as the Big 12’s highest-graded center — not to mention that he qualified for track and field outdoor nationals in the shot put in the spring.

What Foster characterized as “a little mishap” during summer workouts threatened to halt his momentum. He didn’t specify the nature of his injury, but Foster said it was the result of a “freak accident” while he was doing sprints.

“Just kind of went home and went ‘All right, it is what it is,'” Foster said, “and then just got everything that I needed to do, (got) fixed up and moved on and now I’m here and ready to go.”

Foster was asked if he had any concerns the injury could have ended up being more severe.

“There’s always kind of that worry in the back of your head, but I’m a hope-for-the-best, prepare-for-the-worst kind of guy,” he said, “so I was prepping in case something like that were to be the case, but I’m fairly optimistic, I think, so I was really happy that it was only a couple weeks and I was back doing everything, full action.”

At Big 12 media days back in early July, Leipold had said he expected Foster to be limited for the first week or two of camp and then return to action in full. Foster was first spotted during the open portion of practice as part of KU’s fourth practice on July 27, and Leipold said later that week that KU was “in a really good spot with him” and was easing him in so as to avoid any possible setbacks.

While he was gone, the Jayhawks relied on other, younger players to lead the way at center.

“I think that’s the beautiful part in our program, is we talk about it all the time, you know this game of football’s a violent sport and it’s always about the next man up,” Agpalsa said, “and when Bryce went down it provided a ton of opportunity for Tyler Mercer, for Amir (Herring), for Anderson Kopp, for Kael Farkes, even Hank Kelly.

“There were so many young men that stepped up to continue to take reps, and when we can do that, just like most people would want in that room, we have the ability to build more depth.”

Foster said he was proud of how players like Mercer and Herring, young transfers from North Texas and Michigan, respectively, acquitted themselves in his absence.

“They asked me a bunch of questions, trying to figure things out while they were doing stuff, and they did a really good job,” he said. “… Now that I’m kind of back doing full swings, they’re able to kind of watch and kind of see how I operate, and then I can talk them through the way I kind of operate things as well.”

Foster’s position is one of three reasonably settled spots on the offensive line. Kobe Baynes and Calvin Clements are locked in at right guard and left tackle, respectively, but Enrique Cruz Jr. and Nolan Gorczyca are battling at right tackle as James Livingston, Tavake Tuikolovatu and Herring contend for time at left guard.