photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas running back Yasin Willis participates in Kansas football's spring practice on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Lawrence.

If you want to get to know new Kansas running back Yasin Willis by watching his Syracuse highlights, you need only watch his very first carry of the 2025 season.

Tennessee defensive end Joshua Josephs — 6-foot-3, 240 pounds — works around a block and meets Willis a yard behind the line of scrimmage. Willis — not that far off at a listed 6-foot-1, 235 — proceeds to plow straight through him and wiggle forward for a couple more yards.

It’s a modest 4-yard gain, but one that Willis considers a perfect encapsulation of his downhill running style.

“I feel I’ve been that way since a kid,” he said. “Even the way my dad, my uncle, how I was coached is just everything, just aggressive. You know what I’m saying? Bring the heat, be that playmaker. That’s kind of the role that I always had to take on since I was a kid. So my dad always preached that to me: Make sure I’m being aggressive, downhill, don’t be soft.”

He instilled those principles from a young age. Willis’ father Harold had been a high school running back. When his son was 9, he showed him a video of a 60-yard touchdown he had scored back in the day on which he had run over two defenders.

“Ever since then, I don’t know what it was, a spark just came into me,” Willis recalled. “When I touched the field, that’s all I thought about, like, aggressive, getting downhill, I want to run somebody over. That was like my first instinct growing up.”

Willis has brought those instincts into the first two years of his collegiate career — he carried the ball for 558 yards last season at Syracuse, about 73% of which came after contact — and will attempt to bring them into his junior season as a member of the Jayhawks.

“I think outside of just jumping over people, right, I think just needless to say, (we liked) how explosive he is for how big he is,” running backs coach Jonathan Wallace said. “I mean, gosh, he’s almost as tall as I am and he’s every bit of 230 and he can pick his knees up and put them down.”

That’s not all, though — the KU staff also appreciated his vision, ability to change direction and his potential value as a pass blocker: “They want me to play a big role in that pass blocking so third and fourth downs, they want me, to be able to say ‘All right, let’s put Yasin in,'” Willis said. “They want to make sure it ain’t even a question that we’re going to get a first down.”

“There’s a lot of all around that he can do that we’ve been really pleased with so far from him, and I still think there’s still a ton that he can improve at,” Wallace added. “He knows that as well. And shoot, he’s eager to get it done, and that’s the positive piece to all of that.”

Willis is a New Jersey native who spent his first two collegiate seasons in the state of New York. Kansas is a bit of a departure, but his teammates and coaches have helped him settle in — and it hasn’t been all that difficult.

“The people in the community, actually, these people are very welcoming out here,” he said. “You know, it’s kind of like I’m a very up-north guy, so you’re not really used to that, how welcoming everybody else is. I like that about Kansas, out here. Great vibe.”

Wallace apparently had his eye on Willis for a while before connecting with him in the transfer portal.

“He said he really wanted me to get up here for a visit,” Willis recalled, “so I took my chances, I came down here, got to speak ball with him a little bit, state more personal things as well, and spoke to him about how we could make this work and be on the same page to where he’s being a great coach for me and I’m learning from him and putting that out there on the field.”

Willis was just one piece in the broader puzzle as KU reassembled its backfield in January. By the time he had committed, Jalen Dupree was already on the board. At the end of the portal window, the Jayhawks reeled in former Kansas State running back Dylan Edwards, who at 5-foot-9 and 175 pounds forms quite a contrast with Willis on the practice field.

“Dylan’s a great person,” Willis said. “Fast, blazing speed. It’s crazy how he hits the hole. It’s some things that he got in his game that I try to learn from him, and it’s some things in my game that he (tries) to learn from me.”

Willis said Edwards’ vision impresses him, to the point that it seems like he knows where the ball is going to end up going before the play unfolds. Conversely, Willis said Edwards hopes to channel some of his aggression.

Both Wallace and associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki made similar comments to the effect that KU has “the yin and the yang” in its backfield.

“I want to take a Yasin and a Dylan — they’re different people — ask them to do, put them in a position to do, what they do best, and that goes to every position,” Kotelnicki said.

As a whole, the KU backfield may not even be close to its full potential yet. Dupree has missed the spring; redshirt freshman Justin Thurman had Achilles surgery. That has left plenty of reps for early enrollee Kory Amachree and redshirt freshman John Kelly.

However it ultimately shakes out, it is safe to say that Willis running through defenders will be a significant part of the plan.