Matt Tait: Beaty striking right balance at start of second season

By Matt Tait     Aug 31, 2016

Mike Yoder
Kansas football coach David Beaty gives out instruction during a drill in KU's Fan Appreciation Day practice on Saturday, August 20th at Memorial Stadium.

Ask the Kansas football players how much better this year’s team is compared to last year’s and they’ll tell you the difference is night and day.

Ask second-year head coach David Beaty the same question and you’ll get a different, more diplomatic answer.

The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes give him away, but, still, at least from the outside looking in, Beaty appears to be wrestling a 900-pound bear and winning.

The current challenge for the head football coach at Kansas goes well beyond returning the program to respectability. It includes recruiting, developing, teaching and caring, and doing all of that while keeping your emotions in check.

By nature, Beaty is not that great at that. He’s an emotional, enthusiastic, rah-rah guy. And that’s why it’s so impressive that he has the ability to stand in front of a room full of media members, as he did on Tuesday, and tell them that Rhode Island is a darn good football team and the Jayhawks are going to have their hands full on Saturday. All with a straight face. All with the tone of someone talking about Oklahoma or Texas.

It goes beyond one opponent, though. As Beaty said, “win, lose or draw, this one game is not going to (determine) how the season goes.”

It’s that mindset and perspective that shows how far Beaty has come. A year ago, as a first-year college head coach, he might have stood up there and tried to say the right things while fidgeting the whole time. Tuesday, he said the right things and stood like he meant them.

Beaty is excited about this team and this season. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. But he has a job to do. And that job is to get the Jayhawks prepared to beat Rhode Island. That’s why he’s been calling Saturday’s 6 p.m. season opener at Memorial Stadium the most important game in the program’s history for months. And that’s why he chooses to focus on the minutiae of Saturday’s game plan instead of stepping back and smiling about the progress they’ve made and dreaming about the places they’re headed.

“The hardest thing, as a staff, is, these guys have worked extremely hard, probably one of the toughest, most rigorous and productive offseasons that I’ve been a part of in my career,” Beaty said. “But we can’t be caught thinking just that’s gonna get you a win. All that does is help you pay the price of admission to the ballgame and have a chance to win it.

“So we’re guarding against that — the fact that you think you worked hard so you just deserve to win.”

Truth be told, Beaty and his players both deserve to win this ballgame. They’ve been more substance over style from the beginning and, even though they’ve had an enormous number of hiccups along the way, they’ve shown up to work for nearly two years without complaining and have had some fun doing it.

That last part is what has most impressed those who know Beaty best.

“Our kids have been so vulnerable and he has done so much to just say, ‘Hey, you know what, I’m gonna carry the torch and if this torch burns out, it’s my fault,'” cornerbacks coach Kenny Perry said. “He’s put so much pressure on himself, but that’s just the way he’s always been.

“I think it’s been a good thing for our kids, though. They really want to win for him. He’s done so much for them. Wow. It’s kind of that whole ‘don’t let your parents down’ syndrome.”

That was exactly the way junior linebacker Joe Dineen described it when discussing what a win this weekend would mean for his head coach.

“It would be huge for the program,” Dineen said first. “Last year, that’s not the type of coach Coach Beaty is.”

Beaty admitted as much when asked about the personal differences between Week 1 this season and Week 1 a season ago.

“I just feel a lot more at ease because so many of the little, (loose) ends, you see those coming and they’re handled already,” he said. “Winning cures a lot, now, but I’ll be honest with ya. I’m excited and I can’t wait to get out to practice every day. It’s a lot of fun to be out there with those guys and be involved with ’em.”

Imagine how much fun they could have next week, if they’re sitting at 1-0.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.