Still waiting...

It became a bit of a running joke when former KU QB Jalon Daniels was still here.

For two seasons, each time Daniels saw Isaiah "Zeke" Marshall get into the game after him, the former Jayhawk who just made his first NFL start for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers over the weekend, would become fixated on Marshall finding a way to get into the end zone.

There were a couple of close calls. Some even sniffed the goal line. But Marshall never got in.

And today, through four games as KU’s starter this season — in Year 3 of his Kansas career — Marshall is still waiting for his first rushing touchdown as a Jayhawk.

During his first two seasons, when Marshall logged 15 carries for 160 yards, almost all of it coming off of designed QB runs, the entire idea of him having the ball was to create an explosive play and give the offense a lift.

Today, however, Marshall is responsible for much more than that, which is why the fact that he’s still waiting for that first rushing touchdown doesn’t bother him in the least.

“Not really,” he told R1S1 Sports after last week’s 55-0 win over Middle Tennessee, when he ran for 110 yards on 10 carries. “Just scoring as an offense is what matters to me. It does suck to get tackled on the 2-yard lie, 1-yard line, but, at the end of the day, we still scored.”

Early in the second quarter of KU’s most recent victory, Marshall reached the 1-yard line after picking up 6 yards on a QB run from the Middle Tennessee 7 on 2nd and 3. A penalty on the next snap — a handoff to Dylan Edwards — pushed the Jayhawks back 5 yards and then Edwards took it in from 6 yards out on the next play for what was his first career touchdown as a Jayhawk.

“Just scoring as an offense is what matters to me.”

— KU QB Zeke Marshall on still waiting for his elusive first rushing TD

Marshall did not get close again after that. But he did throw a touchdown and help lead the Kansas offense to seven more scoring drives the rest of the day.

“Looking back on it, of course I feel like I could’ve done more to get that extra yard,” he said of his near score against the Blue Raiders. “But as long as we score, I’m happy. And I was happy for Dyl to get his first touchdown.”

Edwards went on to add two more during his best day as a Jayhawk and Kansas, as a team, racked up a school record 706 yards, with 432 of those coming on the ground.

Even third-string QB Chase Jenkins got in on the act, scoring his first KU touchdown before Marshall got his, with a 14-yard run midway through the 4th quarter.

“He’s fast,” Marshall said, smiling. “He’s a great person, too. I’m happy he got that one.”

Marshall said neither Jenkins nor any of his other teammates gave him a hard-time about the first-year KU QB hitting paydirt before Zeke.

“Noooo,” he said. “Unless I got tackled and it was me against one person, they usually understand. The one last year against Oklahoma State, though, the whole team was on me.”

In that one, a 44-yard burst with KU leading 17-7 late in the 3rd quarter, Marshall was caught on the angle and pushed out of bounds by an OSU defensive back at the 10-yard line.

So, as the Detroit native heads into his fifth start as KU’s quarterback, the goal remains improving within the position rather than crossing the goal line.

And, from what KU coach Lance Leipold has seen, Marshall is doing just that.

“I think he just keeps getting better,” Leipold said Monday. “Are we pleased where it’s trending? Absolutely. And he’ll do nothing but get better.. And the great thing about him is he wants to get better.”

Leipold continued: “There’s not ever a time where you get the feeling, body-language-wise, he’s like, “Yeah, I kinda got this’ or whatever. He’s extremely coachable (and) very humble in how he goes about it.”

Unlike in past years, when Marshall’s whole focus, on top of being ready in case he was needed, was on finding a way to cross the goal line with the ball in his hands, his emphasis this season has been on getting the team there however he can.

And whether he’s sniffing the end zone or leading others to it, Leipold has liked the way his young quarterback has grown through the first four games of the season.

“We all saw Isaiah run more fluidly and confidently than he had maybe in the previous (couple games),” Leipold said of his output against Middle Tennessee. “You can see what an effective weapon he can become when he is a runner. And that’s gonna be part of what we want to do because, when he’s a threat that way, and we have the other guys there, we become a more complete offense that we’re gonna need here in conference play.”

Next up, the Jayhawks (2-2 overall, 0-1 Big 12) play at Utah on Saturday, with kickoff slated for 9:15 p.m. central time on ESPN.