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

Kansas quarterback Chase Jenkins (10) high fives redshirt-sophomore Khijohnn Cummings-Coleman in the end zone during the Jayhawks' game against Middle Tennessee on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, at David Booth Memorial Stadium in Lawrence.

Khijohnn Cummings-Coleman didn’t have the most restful trip back from London.

The Kansas redshirt sophomore defensive back had seen what was going on in his team’s running-back room, with Kory Amachree and Justin Thurman already out for the long term and, most recently, Yasin Willis potentially done for the season as well. And so, in the wake of KU’s loss to Arizona State, Cummings-Coleman began to develop an idea: he would offer head coach Lance Leipold his services on the offensive side of the ball.

“I spent that whole flight literally sitting there, I was like, ‘Man, I got to build up the courage,'” Cummings-Coleman said. “‘What is he going to say? What is this going to look like?’ And I just texted him and he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s have a conversation.’ I was like, ‘OK, this is going to open the door.'”

The Minneapolis native’s move to running back didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. He had set records as a high school wide receiver. He continued to play on the offensive scout team at Iowa State, where he began his collegiate career, so it’s not like he was especially rusty with the ball in his hands. And he hadn’t been getting too much playing time early in the season at nickel, thanks to the emergence of Elijah Cannon, or safety.

Perhaps most notably, the KU coaches had already deemed him worthy of a scholarship offer as a prospective offensive player out of high school. So why shouldn’t they give him a chance again a couple years later?

“It was like they already know kind of the capabilities that I have,” Cummings-Coleman said. “And I had belief in myself and I felt like they had belief in me at one point — why not try it again?”

As Leipold relayed on Saturday, they essentially gave Cummings-Coleman a two-day window of reps at running back during the bye week to prove his worth; as Cummings-Coleman put it, he “got in, took care of the ball, ran hard and that’s kind of the biggest thing.”

Just over a week later, he demonstrated all those same attributes in a game that counted. Years removed from his last carries, the redshirt sophomore got in as KU’s third-string running back against Middle Tennessee and cashed in with a 19-yard catch, four carries for 48 yards and a rushing touchdown. He said it was an “ecstatic feeling.”

“It was amazing,” Cummings-Coleman recalled on Tuesday. “I love that feeling right there because going through those two weeks before the game, I’m talking to my teammates like, man, everybody’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to score!'”

He picked up blocks from pulling tight end Quinton Conley and left guard James Livingston, made cornerback Devan Carlisle miss in space and then fought through contact from Andrew Cross-Adams to get to the pylon.

“The place was going crazy when Khi scored the touchdown,” associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki said. “I don’t know if you guys saw our sideline, you know what I mean? It was awesome.”

Indeed, Cummings-Coleman hugged a few teammates and then made it off the field to greet a whole lot more: “I didn’t even want to celebrate,” he said. “I just wanted to get straight to the sideline because I knew everybody was going to love it.”

It might not be the last time he gets to delight his fellow Jayhawks this season — jus so long as he continues to protect the ball and develop his understanding of the offense. He certainly seems to be picking up Kotelnicki’s system pretty quickly, something for which he also credited running backs coach Jonathan Wallace and his teammate Dylan Edwards: “All the terms and stuff, to people outside, they’ll think that’s (very) difficult, but no, when you sit down and actually take time to study the game and understand it, it’s a pretty simple offense, especially at the running back position.”

While the elusive Edwards excelled with three touchdowns on Saturday, Kotelnicki said he’s expecting the “bigger guys who were just very linear” — namely, Jalen Dupree and Cummings-Coleman — to carry some of the load going forward.

Cummings-Coleman already knew the members of running-back room well because he came in as a transfer alongside many of them: “I’m starting to group in with a lot of the younger guys because I’m kind of in the same boat as them, trying to learn the offense, trying to fight for an opportunity like the rest of them.” Who knows how long that opportunity might last?

“We haven’t had any discussions about that, but once again, just like with this opportunity, I’m a dude that’s ready to help the team in any way,” he said.