Kansas shakes off sluggish start, crushes LIU 51-6 in its opener ahead of Border War with Missouri

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Isaiah Marshall threw for 246 yards and two touchdowns, Yasin Willis ran for 72 yards and two scores in his Kansas debut, and the Jayhawks rolled after a sluggish start to a 51-6 victory over Long Island University in their season-opener on Friday night.

Buffalo transfer Nik McMillan had six catches for 130 yards and a touchdown, and Tate Nagy added a second-half scoring catch off a deflected pass, as the Jayhawks warmed up for the latest edition of the Border War against bitter rival Missouri next week.

“I told the team this: Games like this that you’re heavily favored, I think everyone wants you to score one touchdown right away that’s worth like, 30 points. Everyone is expecting everything to happen right away,” Jayhawks coach Lance Leipold said, “and when it doesn’t you’re underperforming or something. ... We continued to play well and persevered, and I thought we really took over in the second quarter, got in a good rhythm and kind of took it from there.”

Kansas piled up 613 yards of total offense in the return of Andy Kotelnicki, their former offensive coordinator. He departed a couple of years ago for the same job at Penn State, but returned to the Jayhawks as the associate head coach earlier this year.

Luca Stanzani threw for 111 yards for LIU (0-2). He also was the Sharks’ leading rusher with 20 yards.

Marshall won the starting job over Cole Ballard as the successor to Jalon Daniels, who’d played quarterback for most of the past six seasons at Kansas. Daniels was back in Memorial Stadium on a sweltering Friday night — the heat index was 102 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) at kickoff — after having won the backup job to Baker Mayfield with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The first few series for Marshall were a little shaky, and Kansas led just 6-0 early in the second quarter. But eventually, the sophomore QB began to find his athletic fleet of wide receivers downfield, and that opened up the rest of coach Lance Leipold’s offense.

The first big strike was a 46-yard pass to McMillan that set up Willis, a Syracuse transfer, whose second TD run made it 16-0. Then came a 47-yard throw to Nahzae Cox, setting up Jalen Dupree’s scoring plunge, and a 19-yard touchdown toss to McMillan that sent the Jayhawks into halftime with a 30-0 lead.

“Being able to connect on those throws was huge for the offense,” Marshall said. “As soon as you see one connect it’s time to go.”

LIU had managed just 43 yards by that point. The Sharks finished with 146 for the game.

The Jayhawks soaked up most of the third quarter with another touchdown drive, and Ballard and the backups took care of the rest, much to the delight of PGA Tour star and Kansas alum Gary Woodland, who watched the game from the sideline.

“Eighty-six guys got in the game tonight,” Leipold said. “To get that many guys in, guys that put in as much work as the starters, do a lot of things for this program, do what’s asked, many paying their own way, it’s great to do.”

Kansas did exactly what was expected against LIU, which was routed by fellow FCS-level school North Dakota last weekend. But the road will get much more difficult when the Tigers roll into town fresh off a 54-14 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Thursday night.

Long Island returns home to play Albany on Sept. 12.

Kansas hosts the Tigers next Friday night for the first time since Oct. 29, 2005.

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