KU Jayhawks football announces starting QB ahead of season opener vs. South Dakota
Kansas football coach Lance Leipold has a starting quarterback for his Jayhawks debut.
North Texas transfer Jason Bean will get the starting nod, KU Athletics announced Friday afternoon on its Twitter account. The Jayhawks play South Dakota at 7 p.m. Friday.
Bean, a 6-foot-3, 189-pound redshirt junior, made up ground late. He appeared to be behind candidates Miles Kendrick and Jalon Daniels in the first weeks of August practices, though Leipold recently complimented him on both his speed and improvement with the playbook.
“He’s the tallest of the bunch. He’s got a good arm. He’s the fastest of the bunch, and he can really accelerate and go,” Leipold said Tuesday on his “Hawk Talk” radio show. “It’s really been the part of watching him, again, in the last 10 days to two weeks really get a grasp of what we’re doing and what Andy (offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki) has been asking.”
Earlier this week, teammates raved about Bean’s quickness.
Running back Velton Gardner said he had to “really turn on the jets” to keep up with Bean while running behind him in option drills.
“He’s going to make a lot of plays for us,” Gardner said.
KU defensive end Kyron Johnson — one of the team’s fastest players — said he had been impressed by Bean’s ability to go “from 0 to 100 like that.”
“To see him transition like that, it’s like, ‘OK.’ It makes me have to get on my high horse, because I’m a little bigger body than that, and I have to really pick up my pace too,” Johnson said. “But seeing that, I like it. It’s cool. He’s a fast QB, and I haven’t seen that here in a while.”
Bean, who finished third in his class in the 100-meter dash state championships as a high school senior in Texas, had 56 rushes for 346 yards last season. That included a 10-carry, 169-yard effort in North Texas’ 52-35 victory at Middle Tennessee.
He originally committed to KU in March.
