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

Kansas quarterback Chase Jenkins participates in KU Football's spring practice at Lawrence High School on Saturday, April 11, 2026 in Lawrence.

Jim Zebrowski, like much of KU’s current staff, has seen firsthand how quickly and suddenly a third-string quarterback can get called into action — like when Cole Ballard had to enter midgame as a true freshman former walk-on back in 2023, then start in the Sunflower Showdown.

“What happened the first couple years we were here?” Zebrowski said on Saturday. “Multi-quarterbacks.”

The Jayhawks’ longtime assistant, now coaching with the fourth different title — passing game coordinator — of his six years in Lawrence, still firmly believes in the importance of Rice transfer Chase Jenkins as KU enters the 2026 season, even as the competition for its starting role has narrowed to Ballard and Isaiah Marshall.

“I think one of my strengths — it has to be, it has to be this — is to make sure when you have quarterbacks who are dynamic and will run as part of your offense, you have to have depth or you can’t do it,” Zebrowski said. “A lot of programs have faltered because they run the quarterback, have no depth, the next guy who comes in is not running, the whole offense changed and they go backwards. My job is to make sure that if something does happen to one of those two guys, or both those guys, that the No. 3 and No. 4 have to be able to play.”

In terms of his ability to run, Jenkins can match or exceed anyone in the Jayhawks’ quarterback room. The redshirt junior from Houston carried the ball 151 times for 531 yards and five touchdowns as Rice’s starter last season. But he was also playing in an unusual shotgun-based triple-option scheme, so he only threw the ball 172 times, completing 119 passes for 1,025 yards with nine touchdowns and two interceptions.

“It’s a completely different world,” Jenkins said. “It’s completely different, a lot of stuff that’s kind of excluded.”

Throw in the fact that he was limited for much of spring practice, and it’s been a bit of a daunting transition to KU in some ways for Jenkins. The addition of senior analyst John DeFilippo, a former NFL offensive coordinator and Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks coach, has eased matters somewhat for Zebrowski in allowing him to do more hands-on work with “the young guys,” Jenkins and true freshman Jaylen Mason.

“I don’t mean Chase is young, but young to our program, so I hope you guys understand what I’m saying when I say that,” Zebrowski added. “It gives me more time to deal with them. Because I’m telling you, that’s a huge learning curve, especially what we do offensively, verbiage-wise with cadence variations, a lot of things that they’ve never done in high school.”

Jenkins wasn’t even a quarterback at all until his sophomore year of high school. Before that, as he puts it, “I grew up playing everything else.”

Even during his time at Rice, he briefly converted to wide receiver, only to miss much of the season he was supposed to play in the slot due to injury. Then a new coaching staff came in and moved him back to quarterback in the option scheme.

Having the third- and fourth-string quarterbacks, Jenkins and Mason, be functional is “critical,” Zebrowski said.

“(Jenkins) played some receiver at Rice, played quarterback at Rice, played quarterback in high school, but … our verbiage is different, obviously,” Zebrowski said. “We expect a lot of the quarterback — pistol, under center, gun, all that stuff. So I think it’s still processing. So I got to do a great job with him helping him process information and make that happen faster.”

It has certainly gotten faster for Jenkins as his time in Lawrence has gone on.

“I’ve been able to really sit down, hone in on everything, especially just taking a step back during spring, I was more so learning because I was kind of limited,” Jenkins said. “I’ve learned a lot since then and I’ve been able to grasp it pretty well.”

As for what his role might look like this year, with Ballard and Marshall contending to start?

“For me, just doing whatever I can to help the team win,” he said, “however that comes, whatever form or fashion.”