Kansas will have a familiar face under center when it opens the 2018 season.
Tuesday, Kansas confirmed that Peyton Bender will start at quarterback for KU in the opener against FCS Nicholls State Sept. 1. The fifth-year senior had been engaged in a competition throughout the offseason with redshirt junior Carter Stanley and junior college transfer Miles Kendrick.
Bender opened the 2017 season as the Jayhawks starter as well.
A year ago, Bender, a transfer from Washington State via a Mississippi JUCO, started eight of the 10 games in which he played for the Big 12 school. The 6-1, 190-pounder completed 148-of-273 passes for 1,609 yards, 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 2017. The Jayhawks were 1-7 in Bender’s starts, with the season-opening win over an FCS school accounting for KU’s the only victory of the season.
Stanley, incidentally, started the other four games Bender didn’t. He had a career-high 418 yards passing in a 10-point loss to Kansas State in late October.
