The Kansas Jayhawks are wrapping up spring practices, but not before giving the fans a show on Friday night at Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence. With many of last year’s offensive stars limited, the freshman and backups stepped up in a big way to give the Jayhawks plenty to be happy about heading into the summer months.

But both sides of the ball had their time to shine. There were multiple stops by the defense during the scrimmage portion of the event, including interceptions on back-to-back drives to highlight the end of the first half.

Jalon Daniels was active during the skills portion, throwing the ball around and seemingly picking up with the spectacular throws as if he was never injured last season. But his best throw of the night was a strike to Quentin Skinner during the scrimmage that sparked flashbacks from the last two seasons.

Lance Leipold and his staff had their work cut out for them, trying to adjust to life without Andy Kotelnicki at the helm of the offense. But the switch to Jeff Grimes’ system didn’t look like a switch at all, as many of the same concepts and motion were on display all night long.

It was the first time that fans got to see freshman quarterback Isaiah Marshall, who had plenty of highlights. His arm strength was on full display, and the few times that he got out to run, his speed and cutting ability was reminiscent of a freshman Jalon Daniels.

The biggest questions coming into the night surrounded the defense, where the Jayhawks lost quite a few key contributors to graduation or the NFL Draft. Jalen Dye stepped up from the safety position, snagging one of the interceptions and getting multiple big stops. As the scrimmage went on, multiple players made an impact on the defensive line, including red-shirt freshman Grady Seyfert and the four-star defensive end Dakyus Brinkley.

Overall, there is still plenty to work on for this team. But given the rapid improvement that we have seen in Fall Camp in each of the previous seasons under Leipold, it’s safe to say this team is on track for another successful season.