Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
Kansas running back Dylan Edwards participates in Kansas football’s spring practice on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Lawrence.
The third time was the charm for the Kansas coaching staff in its efforts to reel in running back Dylan Edwards.
KU had attempted to recruit Edwards out of Derby High School, where he was one of the nation’s top running backs in the 2023 recruiting class. He initially committed to Kansas State, flipped to Notre Dame and eventually wound up signing with Colorado.
Head coach Lance Leipold and his staff tried again when Edwards hit the transfer portal the first time, following a freshman season with the Buffaloes that put him on the map. But as Leipold recalled, it wasn’t quite a fit as KU still had Devin Neal in the fold. Instead, Edwards went to K-State.
But after two years with the Wildcats — including the 2025 campaign derailed by an early-season ankle injury — Edwards headed across enemy lines in the Sunflower Showdown rivalry to join the Jayhawks.
“I knew it was going to be different,” Edwards said on Saturday, “and I like to be different, so why not? That’s why I’m here.”
Edwards is different on the field, too. As KU’s new associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki, who knows a thing or two about such matters, put it, the former collegiate sprinter has “some unique skill sets and talents that merit some specialized packages for sure.”
Edwards possesses the speed and the elusiveness to inspire such creativity from the KU coaching staff, as he joins the Jayhawks’ retooled backfield.
“The first month or so here, he was very limited yet from the injury, and everything there,” Leipold said, “but once he’s been given the full go, it’s been exciting to watch him, and I think our fans are going to enjoy watching him play.”
Now a redshirt junior, Edwards made his abilities known in his first collegiate game with Colorado in 2023, when he racked up 159 yards and four total touchdowns in an upset win over TCU, which was at the time the reigning national runner-up. That was his most productive game as a Buffalo, but he still touched the ball 112 times for 620 yards of offense in his first year.
He went home to K-State and served as a complementary back to DJ Giddens for much of his sophomore year. When Giddens opted out of the Rate Bowl, Edwards engineered another momentous single-game showing with 18 carries for 196 yards and two touchdowns, plus a receiving touchdown, in the Wildcats’ win over Rutgers.
He had a chance to serve as K-State’s primary rusher the following year, but it didn’t go according to plan. Edwards hurt his ankle while muffing the first punt of the Wildcats’ season against Iowa State in Ireland and ended up playing in just three games the rest of the year. (He did rush for 166 yards in one of them.) He then left the program in November.
Edwards was in a walking boot until the end of January, when he was able to take it off and begin rehab, he said. In the meantime, there was the matter of finding his next school. Leipold said he was “monitoring it from afar” as Edwards was in the portal. KU did some background work with former members of the Kansas State staff and eventually invited the running back to Lawrence, first for an unofficial visit, and later officially with his parents.
“I’ve been knowing them for a long time, and that relationship just carried on when I got in the portal again,” Edwards said. “Those guys are the same guys as they were when I was a freshman.”
Ultimately, Edwards said, the KU coaches were giving him the opportunity to be himself.
“I wanted to make sure that he knew that we were in this with him together to make this a good experience for him,” Leipold said, “and that was maybe different than some of his other options that he looked at.”
There was some concern from the coaches, Edwards said, about how the rest of the players might welcome him in. It didn’t last.
“I got in here and everybody was real, real nice,” Edwards said, “and they’re just ready to work with me and I’m ready to work with them, and that’s pretty much all my mindset’s been on.”
Edwards hadn’t been all that worried himself, anyway: “I knew that once we got on the field everything would start meshing and jelling together. The more practices go on, the more everybody is talking on offense: receivers, running backs and quarterbacks … I think once everyone got on the field, it took care of itself.”
Now he has a chance to deliver on the promise he has shown at the Big 12 level throughout his career, and do so in a more consistent fashion. He said he is working on regaining his confidence and that it’s improving on a daily basis.
“I feel great,” he said. “I’m ready. I’m ready to play right now. And I’m just happy. That’s something that’s different. I’m very happy here.”
Indeed, Edwards stressed on multiple occasions in meeting with reporters for about five minutes on Saturday how important it is in this latest stop of his career for him to have fun and “try not to be so serious.”
“I told my family in coming in here, I don’t care about nothing else but having fun, and I know I’ll do good if I have fun with it, so that’s what I’ve been doing,” he said.
In turn, Kotelnicki will have the chance to have fun incorporating Edwards. Edwards said he told him that if he went to KU, “he was going to do everything in his power to make the offense fire.”
“Coach K hasn’t put me in a box as far as ‘You have to do this only,’” Edwards said. “It hasn’t been like that. And so he told me to come here, be myself and play fast, and that’s pretty much all they’ve been telling me to do. They haven’t put me in a box, not one time.”
The KU coaches can play to his strengths because they have other options in the backfield to fulfill different roles. Syracuse transfer Yasin Willis is an imposing 6-foot-1, 225-pound back who rushed for 558 yards in nine games last season. Jalen Dupree is coming off a strong season of his own at Colorado State, though he won’t go through spring practice due to offseason surgery, and highly touted freshman Kory Amachree has enrolled early.
“Everybody learns off each other in the room, and we try to make each other better by talking to each other,” Edwards said. “And that’s not just in the running back room, that’s in the receiver room, those guys giving me pointers, and all the coaches. Everyone’s trying to develop each other here, and that’s something big that I like about it here.”
Leipold said Edwards has integrated himself well, “not trying to come in and do anything over the top and just (trying to) be like everyone else in the building.”
“He has been who we wanted him and expected him to be as a football player for sure,” Kotelnicki said. “What I probably didn’t know was his competitiveness. He’s kind of a quiet, more reserved individual, but then when he gets on the football field, he’ll get going, and it’s fun to watch. He’s been awesome. He’s been super coachable.”
AP Photo/LM OteroColorado running back Dylan Edwards gestures on his way to score a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game against TCU Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023, in Fort Worth, Texas.
AP Photo/Charlie RiedelKansas State running back Dylan Edwards runs the ball during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Kansas State, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan.
PREV POST
Gary Woodland surges to a 3-shot lead at the Houston Open
NEXT POST
Edwards enjoying early days at KU after offseason move from K-State
Written By Henry Greenstein
