During fall camp Jared Casey’s name was not mentioned a lot by the coaching staff during interviews. But as it turns out the senior from Plainville just went about his business and was the front-runner for the starting tight end spot from day one.

When the depth chart was released this morning, Casey’s name appeared as the starter. Jeff Grimes, the Jayhawks offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, said he emerged as the leader, and it stayed that way during camp. It was a battle between Casey and Trevor Kardell.

“He was really the leader from day one,” Grimes said. I felt like Trevor did some good things. Another guy that's been banged up and him missing some time off and on, really from the time I got here, all the way up until about a week or ten days ago, just trying to manage his knee, I think probably impacted him to some extent.”

Although Kardell missed time with bumps and bruises through fall camp, Grimes made the point that Casey’s performance earned him the starting job.

“I don't want that to take away from what Jared did,” Grimes said. “I think Jared clearly our best tight end. Some things he does better than others. And so, you know, we'll manage that in a couple of ways.”

One of the ways Grimes talked about is making some calls to fit what Casey does well.

“One is we'll do things as an offense that play to his strengths a little bit more when you have a guy like him, as opposed to a guy like Mason, who is your primary tight end in 11 (personnel), changes how you use that guy a little bit.”

When Grimes spoke on Monday, the tight end position appeared to be focused on three players.

“Between right now, going into this game, between him and Trevor and Leyton Cure, we've got three guys who I feel good about going in and being able to do different things for us in different personnel groups,” Grimes said.

One of the position battles talked about the most in camp was at center between Bryce Foster and Shane Bumgardner.

Bumgardner won the Rimington Award as the best center in division two. He enrolled in January for spring football. He had a head start on Bryce Foster, who arrived this summer after starting 28 games the last three years at Texas A&M.

Early in camp the reps went to Bumgardner, but every practice Foster started to close the gap. When the depth chart was released, Foster was the starter for week one.

“I think, like anybody does, his performance on a consistent basis just really proved that he was the better guy for the job,” Grimes said. “You know, he does have some valuable experience at a high level, but Shane has valuable experience as well.”

It was over the last two weeks that Foster started to cement himself as the top center.

“He earned the job based on what he did, really, the last couple of weeks,” Grimes said. “I thought Shane had a really good start to camp, got banged up a little bit, which probably impacted him some, but that was about the same time Bryce really started to come on.”

Grimes said the competition will be ongoing and Foster ad Bumgardner can play other positions.

“Shane is a guy that could still play for us,” he said. “The season is young. And I tell all of our guys, just because it starts this way doesn't mean it'll finish that way. And that could be due to performance or injury or any number of things. And he's (Shane) a guy that could play guard as well, so we'll work him there, too.”