FORT WORTH, Texas — Even as quarterback Isaiah Marshall’s status on the Kansas availability report declined from probable to questionable on Thursday night, and even as he was a game-time decision on the successive report on Saturday, he was “not that close” to playing for the Jayhawks against TCU, head coach Lance Leipold said postgame.
Marshall was dealing with a lower-leg injury this week and could have been available in some form in an emergency, Leipold said — hence his status on the report. The choice to start Cole Ballard in his place, though, was “probably determined earlier than maybe came out.”
“We kept hoping and kept hoping that things would turn the corner for him,” Leipold said of Marshall, who started KU’s first seven games, throwing for 1,506 yards and rushing for 403. “The biggest decision in that, the things that (make) Isaiah I guess special and what he does really well is what was prevented, so it kind of made the decision a little easier from there.”
That left Ballard at the helm to face the Horned Frogs’ high-powered defense in his first start since Nov. 18, 2023. And while he threw for 285 yards and a touchdown, he also committed a couple of significant errors in the second half that helped TCU rally from its 13-point deficit to beat KU 22-16.
“It’s really frustrating,” Ballard said. “Can’t turn the ball over. That’s on me. Can’t turn the ball over, but they played really well on defense, and we just got to execute better.”
The most prominent was, with KU up 13-0 and facing fourth-and-5 at TCU’s 39-yard line, a pass into traffic that got deflected and returned for a touchdown, giving the Horned Frogs life and really their first significant momentum of the game.
“Just trying to make a play when there was really nothing there,” Ballard said of his throw, which was intended for Nik McMillan, tipped by Kalen Carroll and picked by Max Carroll. “Just got to throw it away, give the guy a better chance.”
On the other hand, the fourth-year quarterback from Westfield, Indiana, who vied for the starting job with Marshall in the preseason, displayed solid accuracy for the most part. He connected with Cam Pickett on a number of underneath throws: “It’s definitely different,” Pickett said of working with another quarterback, “but really through the whole offseason and especially this week, getting a lot of extra work in with Cole, just so we got chemistry.”
And as Pickett himself said, Ballard’s increasingly deep passes to Nahzae Cox — 35 yards in the second quarter, 44 in the third and 50 in the fourth — got the offense going.
“All of our coaches, Coach (Jim Zebrowski), Coach (Andy Kotelnicki), do such a great job of putting us in positions to make plays, and Nahz is a great playmaker,” Ballard said.
The problem was that those three drives yielded a combined six points because of KU’s struggles when it reached enemy territory.
Even after TCU’s Jaden Craig scored a go-ahead touchdown with just over a minute remaining, Ballard still had a chance at a defining game-winning drive, albeit with no timeouts. But an efficient start that got the Jayhawks to TCU’s 44-yard line with 31 seconds left fell by the wayside when the sorts of deep balls that had been working for KU amounted to nothing, and Ballard couldn’t reach the end zone on a desperation pass as time expired.
“I feel like we gave ourselves a chance,” Ballard said. “Got down there to the 45, battled, got the holding call (on Tavake Tuikolovatu, which backed KU up). I just couldn’t get that ball off at the end of the game, and that’s on me — got to give ourselves a chance at the end of the game.”
Leipold said Ballard “played hard. There are some throws and some reads I know he wished he had back.”
After losing the position battle in camp, Ballard suffered a shoulder injury on a trick play in KU’s second game against Missouri. Rice transfer Chase Jenkins, who appeared in select packages on Saturday, had to serve as Marshall’s backup in the weeks that followed as Ballard rehabilitated the injury.
“Cole hasn’t practiced much in a month either, from the time he was hurt,” Leipold said. “And he was a game-time decision against Kansas State (on Oct. 17), and that would have been very, very similar to Isaiah’s situation today. And then he got some work as the backup going into Baylor (on Oct. 24). So this is the most work he had in prep.
“I’m not going to sit there and put it on Cole Ballard’s effort today. The interception was disappointing, the fumble was disappointing, but I thought he made some plays otherwise, but again, everybody’s got room for improvement, and Cole does too, for a guy who hasn’t started many games.”
What is not yet clear is whether he will have to start more as Marshall works his way back from the leg injury. The Jayhawks, now 3-5, will be back at home to take on UCF (4-4, 2-3 Big 12) on Saturday.
