photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas running back Daniel Hishaw Jr. leaps in the air to try and evade a defender against Kansas State at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025 in Lawrence.

Daniel Hishaw Jr. didn’t want to deal with an injury during his sixth and final season at Kansas — or, as he added following a brief pause in a conversation with reporters on Tuesday, at any point.

But that’s what befell him this September, just as it had several times earlier in his career, including when he missed all of 2021 and most of 2022 due to season-ending injuries.

Now, the year in which Hishaw was supposed to be his most physically and mentally mature self, and receive his time to shine as a featured running back, had encountered an early obstacle when he got hurt in the lead-up to KU’s game against West Virginia on Sept. 20, tried to play in the game and had to leave it, then missed the next two.

That newfound maturity was tested, but Hishaw has come out the other side.

“It was tough, but my teammates was always there with me, my running backs was there with me, and just seeing them run hard and not settling down in practice and everything, I think that just really motivated me, to when I wanted to come back,” Hishaw said. “It was tough, but it was better than any other time.”

The running back from Moore, Oklahoma, has been one of precious few bright spots in the Jayhawks’ back-to-back 42-17 losses to Texas Tech — a game in which he was barely supposed to play but ended up as KU’s leading rusher — and Kansas State. He worked hard for 67 yards against the Wildcats, 50 of which came after contact as he forced eight missed tackles, matching the highest-single game total of his career (from his career-best performance against UCF in 2023).

That included a short touchdown run on which, with K-State’s Wesley Fair grabbing his ankles and Austin Romaine wrapped around him at the line of scrimmage, he somehow wriggled away from both for what ended up being KU’s final score of the day.

“He is determined,” said guard Kobe Baynes, who was right in front of Hishaw as he slithered away from Romaine. “That’s one thing about Deuce. And he will find any way he can to get in the end zone, and he will put it all on the line for this school and for the team.”

The exact nature of Hishaw’s injury this season hasn’t been specified, by the player or the coaches. It was a bit confusing at one point to Hishaw himself, he said this week, in the sense that “it was a little thing, then it turned into a bigger thing, kind of, but it wasn’t actually that big.” Team doctors told him early on, he said, that he wouldn’t be done playing for the year.

“When they told me that, I was like, ‘All right, I’m just waiting to come back,'” he said.

The abortive appearance against WVU actually helped: “The way the injury was, it was better for me to go out there and get it completely gone, what the injury was. It was like a minor setback, but then it just helped me a lot more, and I feel like I feel looser now.”

He may feel better physically, and indeed he also said he’s still working on keeping his weight down, but head coach Lance Leipold said Hishaw has gotten a lot better at the mental side of dealing with adversity, too.

“I think Daniel Hishaw has come as far as any player in the last 10 months of just personally handling situations so much better, and the frustrations of not being healthy enough to go and things like that,” Leipold said. “I’m really proud of him.”

Hishaw attributed it to growing up and understanding there are things he can’t control.

“The only thing you can control is your response,” he said. “That’s something we always talk about up here, and just realizing that stuff and just actually putting that to action, not just one day or two days, every single day.”

He said he’ll make sure to impress upon younger running backs that inevitably, some running back is going to get hurt for some length of time, whether it’s for the season or just a few games: “Keep your head up, man, especially with your teammates.”

In the meantime, Hishaw has a few games of his own left to play — four guaranteed, beginning against Oklahoma State at 3 p.m. Saturday, and maybe another if KU can reach a bowl game.

“I see him every day in practice,” Baynes said. “I know what type of player he is. He’s a physical player, he’s gifted. He runs the ball pissed off. And I think as an offensive lineman, you love that because it makes you want to just keep springing it, just keep chipping away.”