photo by: Journal-World illustration

University of Kansas football recruiting

The Kansas football team got its quarterback in the class of 2027 on Monday afternoon when Chance Thomas announced his commitment to the Jayhawks on a 247Sports livestream.

Thomas picked KU from a top three that included Auburn and Utah. He is a three-star prospect out of Western High School in Anaheim, California, who as a junior in 2025 completed 71.5% of his passes for 3,327 yards with 33 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also carried the ball 94 times for 734 yards with seven touchdowns.

Thomas also had offers from the likes of Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, Iowa State, North Carolina, UCF, Washington and Wisconsin. He announced his KU offer on May 12, 2025, nearly a year to the day before committing. He will take his visit to Lawrence beginning on June 5.

“They’re one of the first schools to offer me, and yeah, it’s just been home from the beginning,” Thomas said on the livestream.

Late in his recruitment, he received interest from Iowa State and an in-state offer from Stanford after a visit, but shortly afterward, the Cardinal received a commitment from another quarterback.

Andrew Ivins of 247Sports, in an evaluation from January, compared the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Thomas to UCF’s newly acquired quarterback Alonza Barnett III, praised his deep passing and ability to extend plays and wrote that he could be “a potential multi-year starter in a wide-open attack that wants to let him create.”

“I can pretty much do it all and I can’t wait to get to Lawrence and show them I can do it for real,” Thomas said.

He becomes the third member of KU’s 2027 class after fellow Californian Derek Gonzalez, an offensive lineman, as well as Deng Tong, a receiver from Kansas City, Missouri, and most recently Trey Stewart, a running back from Little Rock, Arkansas. This is actually the latest stage in a class at which KU has gotten a quarterback committed in some time, as Jaylen Mason and David McComb were the first commitments in their respective classes and Isaiah Marshall was second in the class of 2024.

Thomas will be in next in line after Mason, who was already on campus this spring as an early enrollee. All of the other Jayhawk quarterbacks on this year’s roster, Cole Ballard, Chase Jenkins and Isaiah Marshall as well as walk-on Braylen Rooney, have remaining eligibility for 2027 as well.