The Kansas football team may not know quite yet who will be taking snaps at quarterback, but it has a new candidate to do the snapping.
Offensive lineman Kasen Carpenter, formerly of Oklahoma State, announced his commitment to KU on Saturday morning. The vast majority of his playing experience across three years of college football — two at Tulsa, one at OSU — has come at the center position.
Carpenter, who is 6-foot-3 and 305 pounds, played at Midlothian Heritage and Allen high schools in Texas before joining the Golden Hurricane. He saw time, primarily on special teams, in four games for Tulsa in 2023 and then preserved his redshirt.
The next year, he served as the starting center. He played in all 12 games, serving as the starting center in 11 of them and as a backup right guard in another. In all, that accounted for 873 offensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, with a season-long grade of 50.5.
After a coaching change at Tulsa, Carpenter moved up to the power-conference level to join the Cowboys the following season, but he appeared only occasionally. He started the season opener against UT Martin and season finale against Iowa State but played a total of just 26 snaps in the intervening months.
Carpenter has two years of eligibility remaining. In adding him, KU accounts for the offseason loss of young center Tyler Mercer, who in fact left for Oklahoma State, where his former coach at North Texas recently took the reins. The Jayhawks are trying to fill the void left by the graduation of two-year starting center Bryce Foster.
If Carpenter is able to claim KU’s starting job, it could allow Amir Herring, one of the Jayhawks’ returning starters along the offensive line, to remain at guard instead of moving inside. Carpenter is one of a series of potentially starting-caliber linemen KU has brought in recently, along with former Texas guard Connor Stroh and former Cal tackle Nick Morrow.
