Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - CHASE JENKINS BEST QB??? Reviewing Jayhawks Quarterback Film Ahead of Key 2026 Fall Camp Battle

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks' quarterback battle heats up as Chase Jenkins impresses, despite a challenging spring. Could Jenkins’ transfer from Rice and dynamic skillset reshape KU Football’s offense? Derek Johnson breaks down game film for Jenkins, Isaiah Marshall, and Cole Ballard, weighing their strengths in speed, passing, and game management. The analysis draws parallels to Jason Bean’s evolution at Kansas and questions whether limited spring reps might tip the QB competition. Johnson also ranks the must-win games on Kansas Football’s 2026 schedule, spotlighting key clashes against Kansas State and Missouri. The discussion covers the high-stakes London opener versus Arizona State, the importance of homecoming against Baylor, and tricky matchups with BYU and UCF. Plus, get the latest on KU Baseball’s extra-inning thriller, Men’s Basketball’s Players Era bracket draw, and a look ahead to top recruiting targets set to impact the Jayhawks’ future. Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast   FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm ready to declare who my favorite quarterback is for KU in the 2026 competition. You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, Derek Johnson here, a little KU Football Friday for you. And on today's episode, we'll get to some of the latest news, KU Baseball, bracket set for the players era. I've got a lot to get to on today's episode. but we'll also get into ranking the most important games for KU football this season to win. And we'll start right here with the battle of the quarterbacks for KU. Who's my favorite of the list?

Well, I actually went about and watched multiple games for each player. More film, less film was available for certain guys to kind of get a read of actually watching like all 22 and like what's going on here for these players. Right. And I actually posted about these on a substack. which it's free to check these out. I posted them. I posted the Isaiah Marshall one on Wednesday. I posted the Cole Ballard one on Thursday.

And then the Chase Jenkins one will be coming up on Friday posting. And it just features, you know, several different clips from the games that I was watching to kind of, you know, show some of the things that are good, bad, whatever, in between, between some of the players. And my ultimate takeaway from all of this is that I am a Chase's, Jenkins guy. The transfer in from Rice, I am a believer in Chase Jenkins. Now, this gets complicated because Jenkins had an injury during spring football. Could that prevent him from being the starter? But let's dig into this a little bit deeper of what, you know, I'm kind of talking about here. And again, go check out that substack. I'll try to put some of the links to it in the podcast. But anyway, you can hit me up at D. Johnson Radio if you want to find it. But let's start with Jenkins

and why I liked him the best, right? So Jenkins is a fast runner. He's a quick runner. He's not the level of runner that Isaiah Marshall is, right? Like, Marshall is incredibly dynamic. Like, Marshall is a better runner than some running backs, like legitimately. His level of speed and dynamism are incredible. Jenkins isn't to that level, but he's a good runner.

He's just like a solid, good runner. He's got good enough speed. He's got good enough agility. he can really make guys miss on sacks to where he can keep plays alive, to where he can potentially scramble or throw the football away or extend the play to where he can, you know, there's several clips that I kind of posted about in the article where he's just kind of running around making something happen. And then boom, he finds someone a couple yards down the field who's able to run for like a 10-yard pickup.

And it turns a play where he could be sacked into a positive play. And that's obviously a big thing that you're talking about right there. But I think my estimation of a guy who was playing, receiver the year before for Rice, who, again, was a quarterback in the lead-up before you switched to receiver before switching back to quarterback. So it's not like he's always a receiver. It's just like, and shoot, I remember Ryan Tannahill was like, I think a quarterback in high school goes to Texas A&M, becomes a receiver, switches the quarterback, ends up having a lengthy NFL career. So it's like not that. Well, it's a little more rare, right? But it's not like

impossible. I guess it would be a point being. But when you see that, when you see a player who's playing receiver the year before on an offense that runs kind of a speed option. I think the natural inclination for me, especially when you look at the stats as well, probably not the most proficient passer, right? You see some of the lower maybe like completion percentage numbers or you wonder about certain things you're seeing on like lack of downfield passes. After watching some of the games in the tape on Jenkins, I would attribute a lot of the and it's not like he was throwing a bunch of interceptions. He was at least efficient there

and avoiding that. But I would attribute a lot of the, you know, non-robust passing stats for Jenkins to a lack of offensive passing game creativity. Now, to be clear, like if you are Rice, like I think that's a perfect offense for if you're a school like Rice to run this kind of spread option, triple option attack. I think it works well. It's fun to watch. I certainly enjoy it. but there are certain past plays that I was watching, where it's just like, okay, they're just going to have two guys go out on a route and they're both going to run deep balls.

And it's like, what is Jenkins to do if it's not open? You know, there's not a lot of creativity and options there. So I guess point being, I do think from a passing schematic standpoint, KU will be a lot more complicated than Rice was. Now, that can go two ways, right?

Is it going to be a problem for Jenkins to acclimate to an offense that is this complicated, right? to where it was more simplified at Rice, it was more about the running game, and now it's going to be a hard adjustment. But the flip side to that is if he can adjust to the more complicated passing style, it's going to be like, it's harder, but it's easier, right? It's harder to understand, but if you do understand it, it'll make the game easier for him because more stuff will be open and he'll have more options underneath him. And among the guys, like, the thing is with Marshall, it becomes the hardest to kind of read his film, because most of the film we saw last year was just as a runner.

We saw him throw the ball three times. And a couple of them are just short, quick passes. So it's hard to read too much in Marshall as a passer. With Ballard, I wasn't able to go back and find some 20, 23 film on him from when he was starting. I wish I could. But even then, it's a little bit more limited in passing. But I would say this, Jenkins, I think of the three displayed to me the best ability to make high pressure throws, I guess I would say.

When I say high pressure throws, I'm not talking about throws under pressure. Like, Cole Ballard eats a lot of big hits to deliver the pass that he has to. I have a lot of respect for the way Cole Ballard plays quarterback, right? Because he does play a very gritty game and he's willing to put his body on the line for the rest of his teammates, right? And so I do have respect for that from Cole Ballard. But I think from a standpoint of like being able to make spectacular throws, I aren't. I honestly think Jenkins has the most kind of pizzazz there, right? I think Marshall has the most, you know, dangerous ability as a potential runner.

And what he could do with that, I do think regardless of who your quarterback is, you're going to see Marshall, you know, if Marshall's not the starter, you will see Marshall come in there for specific packages. And I think if the five and, well, he already took a red shirt. So let's say Marshall doesn't win the job. I don't think you would have to worry about a situation where is the guy going to transfer after four games? Because he already took a red shirt. So that wouldn't be a situation. So I think regardless, you're going to get running ability out of Marshall there.

With Ballard, again, he probably has the best understanding of the offense. He's been in the system the longest. He was also the only other one. He was the only one of these that was on the roster. when Andy Koldenik, he was the offensive coordinator last. And that is a big edge up for him. And I do think Ballard is underrated as a runner because of the toughness. I do think he has a little bit more speed and ability than you might think necessarily.

To where, like, honestly, like there is, Jenkins is faster than Ballard. But because of the toughness and the vision that Ballard has, like, there's certain elements of Ballard's game that make him a better running quarterback, certain ones that make Jenkins better. But yeah, to me, it's just kind of that. Like I think in some of the stuff I saw from Jenkins too where like I'm looking at clips where like he's delivering like a great ball and his receiver drops it or just like gets lost looking for the ball in the air. And I'm like, man, I think if you have better receivers, like this is going to actually go pretty well. And then I factor all that stuff in what I saw on tape where I did really like Jenkins. And I go back to the Jason Bean thing. And I go back to the Jason Bean thing where I'm looking at Jason Bean's numbers at North.

Texas and, you know, there were some pretty decent numbers, but like the completion percentage stuff wasn't there. And if you remember in the time at KU, Jason Bean's completion percentage, like got vastly better from where it was from when he started his time at KU and where he was at like North Texas. And when you look at what like Andy Kodlnicki and Jim Zabrowski were able to kind of do with him, right, to where I can't help but wonder if Chase Jenkins could follow that kind of same path. Now, the difficulty here, like I said, is that, Jenkins was hurt during spring ball. It didn't totally knock out spring ball for him, but it definitely limited him in what he could do and the amount of reps that he could take. And that's what worries me here,

because if we go back to the last time, really, there was an open quarterback competition. It was 2021, the very first year of the Lance Light Polterra, Kansas, right? And Jason Bean ends up winning the job out of fall camp. If you remember, Jalen Daniels was hurt at one point in fall camp. I don't remember how long it was like a week, maybe two weeks. But at the time, that was a new coaching staff. And so that's all the, like they joined after spring ball. That's all the reps they got to see. So obviously they went with Jason Bean.

But then by the end of the season, because being got injured, we saw Daniels get an opportunity. And we saw that Daniels was the best quarterback on the team in 2021, right? At the end of the season when KU beats Texas and is competitive in some of these other games like TCU and West Virginia, right? That would be my worry that the lack of reps is going to work against Jenkins here, and they're going to go with the guy they trust and know and Cole Ballard potentially. And we know the staff likes to stick with the guy they roll with at the beginning of the year. So that would be my worry that Jenkins, by not having spring, won't have enough time to kind of make up for it. But if I'm just basing it off the film that I watched of all the players,

Jace Jenkins is my guy. All right, let's get on to ranking the most important games for KU football to win here. in the 2026 season. This is locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by Indeed, workplace chaos, deadline stacking up, inbox overflowing,

and the one position you have to fit is still, Phil is still sitting open. When the pressure's on and you need the right hire, this is a job for indeed sponsor jobs, which helps you reach the people who are going to fit what you're looking for.

If you're looking for the right skills or you want somebody with the right experience, maybe the right location, you can find those things. You're not just hoping the right candidate that stumbles across your post. And here's a stat that says it all. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed,

according to Indeed data worldwide. So if you're hiring, spend less time searching and more time interviewing candidates who check all the boxes with Indeed sponsor jobs. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsor jobs. Listeners of the show, get a $75 sponsor job credit to help get your job, the premium status. It deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast now. support Lockdown Jayhawks by saying you heard about it on the show or this job for indeed sponsor jobs. You can join the everyday or club to get the ad free version of the show at Lockdownjahawks.

Dot supercast.com. That is locked on Jayhawks. Dot supercast.com. Reminder, you can check out our KU baseball recap as well as along with all our other episodes this week on Locked on Jayhawks. Rankin KU's most important games to win. Let's start with number one. I could not decide which one they needed more. So I took the cowards way out.

We are tied first at Kansas State and verse Missouri. I don't know which one's more important to win, but I definitely think you need to win at least one of them. Now, I said this last year, too. I said last year, if KU makes a bowl game and they beat one of their rivals, it's a successful season. They didn't do either. That was unfortunate.

I would say the same goal this year. You know, beat one of your rivals and make a bowl game. And that would be a resounding success. Honestly, if they just make a bowl game this year, would probably be a success, but which one's more important? Because with the Kansas State one, it also counts to a conference game, right? With the Kansas State one, you've also lost way more consecutive games at this point in time. Like, you need to end the streak, whether it's from just the pride standpoint, a recruiting standpoint, whatever it is. Like, you need to end that

now, right? But the Missouri one, it's like Missouri is actually your top rival. And this is your opportunity to get them at home after they won in Columbia. Even though it's not as big of a losing streak, pretty soon like you're not, I'm trying to think, what, is it the next two games against Missouri or is it neutral side or does it go back or I don't even remember. I think it gets pushed out to like 2031 or 2032 or something like that off the top of my head. So like, that means if you lose this other game to Missouri, you'll have taken two losses to

Missouri and have way too much time before you get another opportunity to play them again. And that is the difficult part here of like which of these is more important. You can also say from the timing of the schedule, maybe the Missouri one's more important because it is early on the season, your second game of the season, a win like that over your rival that early on when we do have questions about the quarterback and the experience of the team and yada, yada, yada, a win like that propels you and boost you and gives you some level of opportunity to do something special that season or to ride that momentum into a better season. right um but then again like again it just you've lost so many of these games to kansas state and to be able to do it on the road and uh have an opportunity to maybe in the middle to later portion of the season when you're playing kansas state to grab another win as you're trying to you know keep the momentum going that becomes important too so i don't really know which is more important to be completely honest if you told me kansas could win one of the two again like you're not happy with that i guess like because you you just want to beat your rival every time right but you're at least, I think, content with it. And that's, you know, how I'd feel about this, especially because Lance Leibold hasn't beaten one of those two schools yet in his time in Kansas, I'll be just the one game against Missouri.

Our number three on the list, I have Arizona State, the game in London. And I thought about this one for a while. The reason I settled on this one is a couple. So for one, you're making this long travel out there, which I think it was reported. Kansas is getting like two, two and a half million, something like that to play this game. So, you know, as somebody who's not really in love with them having to play this, game, that is a nice figure to be able to get for this, right? Because what is two and a half million worth? You know, is that worth a couple starters that you added via the transfer portal potentially? I don't know

what that number is, right? Is that, you know, adding a couple high school recruits that you really like? So there's some good stuff that you can do with that money, obviously, right? But it becomes important for a couple of reasons. One, it's your conference opener. So inherently, you're looking to start off on the right foot there. Two, you are going overseas. And, any KU fans who do make that travel and do invest the money to get over there, you want to put on a good show for them. But three, again, going back to the early portion of the season where you're looking to propel your season and grab some early season momentum, that has the opportunity to do it.

And the worry is a loss in a game like that could have an absolute deflating gut punch feel, right? If you lose, especially if you lose that Missouri game and then you lose to Arizona State, you're going to already have a couple losses through your first four games. You're going to be having this long travel back home where you're hanging your head. It's not going to be good vibes, right? So it becomes extremely important to win a game like that on the flip side. But if you do win a game like that, now the vibes are high on this long travel and long flight. Nobody cares that you're traveling, you know, nine hours.

They're just excited that you won the game. Then add to it that for KU, it does come at the precarious time in the schedule where, yeah, you will have just played Missouri. And if you do lose that game, starting off two and two will certainly make it a lot more difficult to make a bowl game. So I have that one in at number three. From there, it's really for me, like four through six is basically like toss up any of the home games for KU.

That's conference home games, I guess I should say. I guess if we wanted to lean one over the other, maybe I'd have the Baylor one fourth because it's homecoming, right? So that's an opportunity with a lot more people in town, get another win. And the Baylor game does come right before you finish your final five games with three of the five on the road. And you've also just really struggled with Baylor. So being able to beat them and kind of vanquish that dragon would do a lot. So I have that one fourth. I have the BYU one fifth just because like BYU's, I don't know, these go both ways.

right BYU is projected to be like a really good team this season so win against them would would work wonders but at the end of the day like if you're just trying to get to six and six it's not a huge difference like if you beat a top 25 team to get the sixth win versus if you didn't you know what I mean like if you're an eight or nine win team the beating a top 25 team would matter because it would affect where your ranks but if you're six and six you're not going to be ranked anyway but still it'd be cool to you know have that opportunity and just because it is a better opponent. If you win that game, it makes your road to a potential bowl game a lot easier. Number six on there, I have the UCF game, which comes later in the

season, and you've got the difficult stretch where you play whatever it is, eight straight games without a buy week. So at this point, you're, you know, maybe faltering to the finish line a little bit more. I believe it's a November game, and you would hope that maybe it's cold for that game, so that UCF struggles coming on the road in the cold there. And then I think last on the list is, I don't know. Like maybe I put seventh, honestly, the Long Island game. I know that sounds silly because it's the game you should win

and you should be able to blow them out. But the alternative of if this is most important to win, if you lose that game, like what are we talking about here? You know, so maybe that one's seventh. And then after that, like Middle Tennessee to the same notion.

And then any road game after that. I feel like any of the road games outside of the At K State game would just be kind of like cherry on tops, right? Ideally, you win one or two of them. to get you to a bowl game, but that's kind of where I'm out with the most important wins. So yeah, can you beat warning rivals?

That's kind of the big underlying here for KU. All right, let's get some of the latest news. We've got a lot to get to KU Baseball, KU Basketball, recruiting news, all that and more. Once again, you can join the Everydayer Club at Lockdownjahawks.supercast.com to get the ad-free version of the show. Well, KU Baseball took down Baylor in extra innings,

eight to seven over in Arizona. So you can check out our recap episode right here on Lockton Jayhawks for that. They'll get Oklahoma State on Friday night. Meanwhile, for KU basketball, the players era bracket is set. They're going to be taken on UNLV in the first game, which UNLV. I don't know that they're expected to be a great team next season. They haven't had many great teams of late. In fact, I know they lost.

They have this really good scoring garters, get like 20 games. We entered the portal because I was looking at him as a potential KU type of guy. Let's see. Bart Torvik has them. Okay, so they're not horrible. 100 second on Torvik for 2027 right now. But that's going to be kind of a road game for KU. Like the player's era is not a tournament that really fills up

or gets a huge amount of attendance, it seems. I would imagine that'll actually be an okay, attended game for UNLV kind of being in the area there, right? And then if you win that game, you play the winner of either Auburn or West Virginia. West Virginia is giving you troubles the last few years. and theoretically, if Kansas plays West Virginia in the second game and Houston in the third, they could play a couple of big 12 schools in this. If Kansas does win their first two games, they could potentially play Florida in the third game.

And that could be fun because you would have the 07 flashbacks where Kansas, I guess it would have been trying to think. I think it would have been in the calendar year of 06, but the 06 or 7 season, where Kansas beats Florida, who eventually wins their second straight title in a crazy game in Vegas. Um, yeah, uh, other news, KU football recruiting news, Mason Oglesby is going to be committing on Friday night. So depending when you listen to this, he might have already committed. KU was in the running here.

This is a really, really good tight end prospect where if KU lands him, he would be the top player that they would add in their class of 2027 to this point in time and potentially even when it's all set and done. Right. Meanwhile, for KU men's golf, their season comes to a close in the Athens regional. So, uh, uh, their season over. But cool that both the men's and the women's golf teams both make it to the NCAA tournament. And that brings us to our final bit here.

Our trivia question of the day, once again, register for our Jayhawk trivia event. Coming up on June 3rd, 630 p.m. over at Johnny's Tavern. Half of the proceeds go to the Rock Truck Roundball Classic. The other half of the entry fee goes to you potentially. It goes to the prize pot. I ain't taking a dime. It's going to be fun. You're going to be asking KU basketball trivia questions.

You can get a team up to six people. Register today, Jayhawk trivia at gmail.com. Yesterday's question, Kansas made just three total three-pointers in the 2008 national championship win over Memphis. Two came from Mario Chalmers, including the notable one. Who made the other one? The answer is Sharon Collins. I'm sure a lot of people remember the shot, too.

It's Sharon making a three from the corner that kind of ends a bit of a dry spell for Kansas and kind of kickstarts the rally for KU. that shot and the Dorell Arthur long midrange, kind of the key shots that KU made before the Mario Chalmers won, obviously some other stuff in between. But yeah, Sharon Collins is the answer there. All right, here's today's question. It's a KU Football Friday. So we'll ask a KU football trivia question, switch it up a little bit here before we get back to KU basketball on Monday. Kansas beat Iowa State in an ugly 14 to 11 game in 2022. Honestly, I should have asked you the name of the Iowa State kicker or missed all the field goals.

So there's your bonus question. What's the name of the Iowa State kicker or missed all the field goals to allow Kansas to win? But in that 2022 game where Kansas wins 14 to 11, who was the only Jayhawk in that game with more than one catch? Not a huge offensive game for KU. There was only one Jayhawk with more than one catch. Who was it? All right. We'll give you that answer on Monday.

I guess you could go Google it yourself. Maybe you know the answer. Hit us up in the comments. And we'll see you next time for another edition of the show. anywhere, podcasts, including on our YouTube page. This has been Locked on Jayhawks.