Why Marshall won KU’s starting job: ‘Different factor’

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

Kansas quarterback Isaiah Marshall throws a pass during KU Football's practice on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, in Lawrence.

To hear Kansas associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki tell it, modern football, even beyond the collegiate level, is becoming more and more centered on “off-schedule yards,” and the ability for a quarterback to extend plays when not everything is going precisely according to plan.

“When you have to game plan for people who can move and groove back there,” Kotelnicki said, “it’s harder on the defensive side of the ball, for sure.”

That specific element — the ability to field someone who provides a “different factor” as an athlete, as Kotelnicki put it — had quite a lot to do with KU’s decision to anoint Isaiah Marshall as its starting quarterback, first revealed last Thursday and then discussed in detail at Monday’s season-opening game-week press conference.

“It was overall in the continuing evaluation of that position, just like any other position, who gives us the best chance to be the most complete offense that we can be, the most dynamic offense that we can be, and the most successful offense that we can be,” head coach Lance Leipold said. “… We came to the conclusion that Isaiah was that person. We’re extremely confident in him and where this is going.”

Marshall, a redshirt sophomore from Southfield, Michigan, displayed his athleticism — an area in which strength coach Matt Gildersleeve says he ranks among the best players on the team — in a limited role in 2025, when, largely on change-of-pace designed runs, he carried the ball 15 times for 160 yards.

But he has only thrown three career passes and had to beat out the somewhat more experienced Cole Ballard, who started a game as a true freshman in 2023 and served as Jalon Daniels’ primary backup each of the past two years, for the job.

“I’m just blessed for the opportunity and I’m ready to play,” Marshall said.

While Marshall, who out of high school received comparisons to Daniels himself, will now take center stage, Ballard, now a redshirt junior, will still figure in to some extent. Leipold made sure to mention that he didn’t display any sort of glaring deficiencies in the course of his competition with Marshall.

“We didn’t have that,” Leipold said. “And that’s honestly why we kept taking our time with all of you in answering that question.”

He also continues to assert that both quarterbacks will play this season, though took care to emphasize on Monday that he won’t be “switching by series” or taking a quarterback out for one mistake. Ballard will also still have a significant role to play as a team captain, one of five: “To me, being named a captain of your college football team is one of the biggest honors that you could have, I think, as the kind of person you are,” Kotelnicki said.

Marshall recalled the moments after he and Ballard learned the result of their competition.

“Me and him hugged and then he told me ‘It’s time to work,'” Marshall said. “So I said, ‘Let’s work and let’s lead this team … Since the first day I came in this program, Cole was the first person to show me love and he’s done nothing but that.”

Added Leipold: “Those are never easy conversations, and Cole Ballard has handled this as good as anybody can handle it.”

Now the focus will turn to preparing Marshall for his first extended action at the collegiate level, beginning on Friday at 7 p.m.

“It is good for the confidence (to be named the starter), but still trusting the process and still taking it one day at a time, man,” Marshall said. “Can’t let that get to your head, so just got to keep your head down and keep going.”

The Sharks, and KU’s successive opponents, can expect to see a self-assured player at the helm, according to left tackle Calvin Clements.

“It’s hard to keep someone like that off the field,” he added.

And while Leipold did say that Marshall’s arm and his footwork have improved, his talent as a runner might be difficult to ignore: “The one thing he does extremely well, he has as good a vision for running the ball and seeing things of a quarterback that I’ve been around in a very, very long time,” Leipold said.

Blake Herold has experienced that up close and personal.

“I know I’m pretty fast for a D-tackle,” he said, “but he makes me look super slow when he’s scrambling.”