Kansas wide receiver Bryson Canty sees setbacks as opportunities to learn lessons, he says, and he knows everything happens for a reason — even the leg injury that set him back during fall camp after he arrived in Lawrence over the summer.
After all, he wouldn’t even be playing for KU in the first place if it weren’t for another injury, a torn hamstring his junior year at Columbia that cost him most of the 2023 season. He was able to redshirt that year, and he came back to the Lions in 2024 and caught 43 passes for 760 yards and nine touchdowns.
Now, nine games into his Jayhawk tenure, he’s on the board with his first touchdown at KU. He shook off Oklahoma State cornerback Cam Smith, snagged a back-shoulder throw from quarterback Jalon Daniels and scored a five-yard touchdown to put the Jayhawks ahead by 17 in a game they ultimately won by that same margin.
“I’m telling you, I’ve been praying about it each week,” Canty said. “Each week I pray to God, I’m just like, ‘Help me contribute, help me do something, help me make a play somehow, man.’ So for that to happen, especially my parents being here and all, that is just a huge honor.”
The native of Pfafftown, North Carolina, a two-time first-team All-Ivy League wideout, hadn’t necessarily been absent from KU’s eight games. He played in them all and had seven catches for 120 yards entering Saturday’s matchup with OSU in Lawrence. But between his late arrival — he graduated from Columbia before joining the Jayhawks in the summer — and the injury, KU hadn’t necessarily been getting everything the 6-foot-2 “very talented, big, physical receiver” (as described by head coach Lance Leipold) has to offer.
“If Bryson Canty would have been a transfer that showed up in January — again, not taking away from others — but I think you’d be seeing him making more contributions even than he does now,” Leipold said after the 38-21 win. “Between that and the camp injury, (it) just really slowed getting him into the rhythm. But you start seeing him make plays, and really the first catch was a great catch, and then the touchdown itself.”
Indeed, Canty’s previous play on Saturday actually outshone his eventual touchdown. As Daniels put it, he “Mossed” a Cowboy defender — grabbed a contested catch over him — for 24 yards on KU’s first scoring drive of the day. Raymond Gay II nearly had a chance at an interception, but Canty came through with the grab to keep the series moving.
It was an excellent proof of concept for a player who says there are no 50/50 balls — “When the ball’s in the air, it’s nobody’s but mine.”
“Shoot, I just turned upfield, I was like, ‘Shoot, hopefully JD trusts me enough to throw it up,'” Canty recalled, “and he did, he delivered a good ball, right out of reach for the dude, so I’m just glad I could come down with it.”
Canty has been playing since KU hosted Fresno State for its season opener on Aug. 23, and he said he’s been practicing at full speed since the week after that game. Even before that, getting him acclimated in Lawrence took the efforts of various teammates and coaches — he mentioned Daniels, as well as Teril Boldiis, a graduate assistant whom he met with every day after practice for hours at a time, by name.
Over the course of the season, he’s proven his worth Daniels and his coaches — Daniels said he has long borne witness to Canty’s potential, ever since he was “making miraculous catches since summer workouts.”
“It’s a little bit weird not having it happen during camp,” Canty said of the process of earning trust, “but I think for me it’s also a motivator up until this point to being able to show up and can’t take any days off. Each day is like I got to prove something and I want everybody to see.”
He may be seen by the public more and more as KU’s season enters its home stretch, after he caught both of his targets in big moments on Saturday.
“I think it just shows his resilience, never wavering, having unwavering belief within his process,” Daniels said. “I’ve been there with injuries, and when you don’t get the chance to be able to go out there and do what you love to do, it just makes you more and more eager to go out there and play.”
