Nobody needs a recap of a 45-point win over a Northeast Conference team to know how it went. Kansas was favored by a spread that basically amounted to "show up and collect the points," and the Jayhawks did exactly that, running away 51-6 over Long Island University at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. The outcome was never really in question. The quarterback was.
Isaiah Marshall made his first career start for Kansas on Friday night, and by the numbers, he did what a program hoping to replace Jalon Daniels needed to see: 14 of 19 passing for 246 yards and two touchdowns, plus 49 yards on the ground. He found Nik McMillan for a 19-yard score, moved the offense efficiently enough that Kansas led big at halftime, and looked like a guy who's comfortable running the show rather than a backup thrown into the fire. After a season in which he mostly entered games on option packages, that's a real step, and it's the most important thing that happened in Lawrence on Friday.
Marshall looked like Kansas's guy. Not because LIU made him prove anything, but because the report on this offense all offseason was that it needed a quarterback who could push the ball down the field and not get the passing game battered the way it was for stretches last year. He did that: clean decisions in the pocket, touchdown throws when they were there, his legs as a changeup when they weren't. That's the box beat writers wanted checked, and he checked it.
A little caution is warranted, though. LIU is now 0-2 to start its season, having already been run off the field by North Dakota before Kansas did it again, and both losses followed the same shape: buried early, cosmetic points late once the outcome's decided. That's less an insult to LIU than a description of where the program is right now, and it means Marshall's stat line, encouraging as it is, came against a defense that had already shown it can't stop anybody. Backup Cole Ballard also played extensively once the game was in hand and moved the ball well himself, a nice problem for Kansas to have but also a reminder that this competition may not be as settled as one box score suggests.
The real answer arrives soon enough. Kansas is coming off back-to-back seasons without a bowl game, including a second-half collapse in 2025 that undid a promising start, and an opener like this one extends a run of comfortable season-opening wins that has flattered this program before without adding up to anything once Big 12 play starts. A Power Four opponent at home is the actual test, and until Marshall does this against a defense that isn't already 0-2, I'd hold off on the parade. But the thing worth remembering from Friday past the box score is simple: Kansas won big, and its new quarterback looked like the answer, at least for one night.
