Will QB Jalon Daniels return for Kansas against Texas? Here’s what Lance Leipold said
.JPG "Kansas head football coach Lance Leipold watches during the second half of his team’s game against TCU Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, in Lawrence.")
Kansas football coach Lance Leipold didn’t guarantee the return of starting quarterback and early-season Heisman Trophy candidate Jalon Daniels for Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. home game against Texas — or the following week’s 7 p.m. regular-season finale at Kansas State.
Leipold, KU’s second-year coach, did reiterate the statement he made after Saturday’s 43-28 loss to Texas Tech, that Daniels “is close” to running the offense on game day once again.
“We’ve got two regular-season games left. Hopefully he’s going to be able to be out there for one or two of them,” Leipold said at a news conference held Monday to discuss the upcoming Senior Day game vs. the Longhorns.
KU is 1-3 in games played without Daniels, who has a shoulder injury. Daniels also missed half of a loss to TCU.
“He’s taking more and more reps. He went today (at practice),” Leipold said of Daniels. “He’s at the point (where) he can play at a level that is going to allow him to go out there and play freely. Is he ever going to be 100% (this season) like he was at the beginning? No, but where’s that at?”
Leipold added that he would not give an exact percentage on Daniels’ health.
“If it’s not a daily conversation (about Daniels’ availability) it’s every other day as we talk and look at it. If you are watching him in warmups you can see it’s really, really close, but there’s a lot of factors that continue to go into that and that’s the best way to say it,” Leipold continued.
KU backup quarterback Jason Bean was shaken up on a late snap and fumble against Texas Tech. Freshman Ethan Vasko ran the last drive of the day for the Jayhawks.
“He didn’t do very much today. He was out there (at practice). We’ll see,” Leipold said of Bean, who threw for three touchdowns and ran for one Saturday at Tech.
Leipold said after the Tech game that Bean suffered “another shot in the middle part of his body just like he did at the end of the game (vs. Oklahoma State a week earlier).”
“I thought for the short term and circumstances, ... I thought it was a small sample size, there were flashes of Ethan Vasko I was very, very pleased with for his first college experience that shows he’s going to be a good quarterback here,” Leipold said.
Vasko, a 6-4, 200-pound freshman from Chesapeake, Virginia, completed 3 of 5 passes for 13 yards and rushed for six net yards on two carries. He had a long run of 17 yards.
“The plan is he will redshirt now,” Leipold said of Vasko. “That was his first game. He has three more to play in. That was the goal from early on, if we could get to that point. Getting him out there was always a hope, not that we can really script it to happen.”
Leipold provided a list of KU seniors who have indicated the Texas game will indeed be their Senior Day game, their final home game. They are: Jelani Arnold, Earl Bostick, Sam Burt, Zion DeBose, Malcolm Lee, Caleb Sampson, Eddie Wilson, Lorenzo McCaskill, Monte McGary, Mac Copeland and Spencer Roe.
Leipold was asked about the future of defensive back Kenny Logan, who is eligible to return for a super-senior season because of the eligibility rules from the COVID-altered 2020 campaign.
“We have a lot of guys that are playing their last game. I hope it’s not Kenny’s last game in this stadium for us,” Leipold said. “Again Kenny knows how we feel about him, his great contributions to this program.
“I’m not approaching it that way (that he might leave KU) and hope he’s not either, but a lot of guys have decisions they have to make. That’s part of the world we are living in now, whether a guy redshirted and can leave, a guy getting (an extra season because of the pandemic). There are a lot of things there. Kenny has done a lot for this program for a long time, a lot during transition. He’s played extremely well. I hope I’ll give you a longer answer (about his contributions) next year when you ask about him,” Leipold said with a smile.
