Saturday Index
Loading matchup intelligenceBringing the latest verified football information into focus.
Saturday Index
Loading matchup intelligenceBringing the latest verified football information into focus.
Home field · Memorial Stadium
Photo: Kuwxman · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for display
LIU
FCS
Jayhawks
2025 record: 5-7 · Big 12
Kansas begins its 2026 season at Memorial Stadium with an opening-week game that matters less as a measuring stick against Long Island University than as the first public test of a rebuilt offense. The central question is at quarterback. A July report said Cole Ballard held a slight edge over Isaiah Marshall, but Kansas had not named a starter. Whoever wins the job will be directing Andy Kotelnicki’s motion-heavy, run-first attack, an appealing structure for a new quarterback but one that still demands clean decisions and precise timing from the opening series.
The decisive matchup is Kansas’s offensive front and running backs against LIU’s front seven. Left tackle Calvin Clements gives the Jayhawks continuity on one edge, while Amir Herring returns as a highly graded piece and newcomers such as Connor Stroh add size. The challenge is getting a reshaped unit to function together immediately. Behind it, Kansas can rotate Dylan Edwards, Yasin Willis and Kory Amachree, using different body types and Edwards’s explosiveness to force LIU’s linebackers and safeties into repeated run fits. If LIU can hold its gaps, prevent creases and create obvious passing downs, it can put the unresolved quarterback competition under real pressure.
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Kansas controls the game by staying patient on the ground, dressing up the same concepts with motion, and giving Ballard, Marshall or another quarterback defined throws to Cam Pickett rather than asking for constant dropback creation. Defensively, Blake Herold and Leroy Harris III need to set the tone up front, with Trey Lathan organizing the second level and the cornerback group keeping LIU from finding easy access throws. LIU’s path is the inverse: win early downs, make Kansas’s new pieces communicate through long possessions, and avoid giving Edwards space after one missed fit. Offensively, LIU needs protection and ball security above all, because negative plays and short fields would let Kansas dictate pace before its own offense has to answer many difficult questions.