40 Days Until Kansas Football: Rooting for David Beaty

By now, a lot of you reading this know all the facts. We know about the road losing streak. We know Beaty’s overall record. We know that the last three years have been, by pure wins and losses, the worst stretch in the entire history of Kansas football.

Lately, I’ve caught myself telling others that, for the good of the program, I’m to the point of actively rooting against David Beaty. But is David Beaty’s failure truly what’s best for Kansas?

Let’s say Kansas Jeff Long comes up with $3M for Beaty’s buyout, then comes up with enough for the buyout for whatever coach they hire, THEN is able to pay said coach between $1M-$2M per year. Ideally, that new coach would have the Jayhawks bowling by year three, maybe even year two if he’s got any Mark Mangino in him. That’s either 2020 or 2021 if you’re doing the math.

That’s a lot of poorly attended home games and probably makes the road losing streak an unbreakable record.

No, what’s truly best for Kansas is if some things finally started to go right around here. AJ Ricker turns the offensive line into a capable unit. An experienced secondary forces coverage sacks and grabs INTs. Daniel Wise tears up offensive lines a la James McClinton. OC Doug Meacham coaches to his talent and not to his system, getting the ball to Khalil Herbert, Dom Williams, and Pooka Williams out of the backfield while stretching secondaries with Steven Sims and Evan Fairs.

And for the love of God, STOP WITH THE BUBBLE SCREENS ALREADY!

Now about those fourth down calls...

I think that it’s fair to say that Beaty doesn’t have a lot going for him. However, he has made national headlines with his recruiting while at Kansas. He currently has a verbal commit from a four star, top-10 dual threat quarterback in Lance Legendre, which would be an amazing get if the verbal sticks. The 2018 recruiting class was the highest rated class (#48 per Rivals) for KU since 2013 (#46).

Side Note: That 2013 class included Weis’ JUCO “Dream Team” of Chris Martin, Marquel Combs, Marcus Jenkins-Moore, Andrew Bolton, and Kevin Short, none of whom played a down for KU. But hey, Cassius Sendish turned out pretty well!

On top of everything, Beaty is, by all accounts, a great guy, a great family man, and an actual hero to one family.

Indeed, the best thing for Kansas is for Beaty to win 5+ games in 2018, recruit at a high level, and for Year 4 to be the point where the program clearly takes off.

The problem is, in three years we haven’t seen any indication from this coaching staff that a turnaround is even the slightest bit of a possibility. After some (questionable) “progress” in 2016, 2017 was a clear step back on both offense and defense. You would have to drink a lot of kool aid before being able to confidently predict KU to somehow, some way, find six wins this season.

I would say that RCT in general, especially yours truly, has been pretty hard on Beaty, the Kansas football coaches, and the administration. However, that’s not because we don’t support the program. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. We want the program to be successful.

Hell, at this point, I just want the program to not be an embarrassment.

All of this to say that while I do WANT David Beaty to succeed, it doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t think that he WILL succeed.