Tom Keegan: Chancellor timetable benefits Sheahon Zenger and David Beaty

By Tom Keegan     Sep 22, 2016

Kansas University chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, left, shakes hands with new head football coach David Beaty, right, after an introductory press conference Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, at the Anderson Family Football Complex at KU in Lawrence, Kan. Beaty, the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator at Texas A&M, was hired by KU Friday. At center is Sheahon Zenger, KU director of athletics.

Listening to David Beaty’s weekly Tuesday news conference had the feel of listening to a coach worried about his job security.

For one thing, Beaty started by praising his boss, athletic director Sheahon Zenger. He then continued to speak about changes he is making to become a better coach.

By Thursday, Beaty and Zenger both had reason to feel more secure about keeping their jobs when chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little announced she would resign in the summer of 2017.

The last thing the chancellor wants to do on her way out of town is fire someone with whom she has a good relationship, so Zenger appears safe. And Zenger, lucky to be given a second football hire given how badly the first one backfired, certainly won’t be granted an opportunity to hire another Kansas football coach, so that makes Beaty safe for as long as Zenger is AD.

At the very least, the Beaty-Zenger duo can count on staying together through the 2017 football season, Beaty’s third on the job.

Beaty and his staff have done a nice job of upgrading the speed in the program with improved recruiting, so there is little doubt that even if Beaty only stays three years, his successor will inherit better talent from him than he did from Charlie Weis.

Even if a new chancellor is in place quickly, Gray-Little’s successor likely will want time to assess the situation before overhauling athletic-department leadership.

The day after the conclusion of a football season is the best time to fire a football coach and officially begin the search for a successor. An AD must be in place for that to happen and just as a chancellor might want a little time before cleaning house, so too might a new AD, unless things grow even worse with the football program.

Given the timing of the chancellor’s departure, it’s a strong possibility that Beaty will be judged after his fourth season and at that point either will be paid $800,000 to leave or will have his contract extended.

Meanwhile, the AD and football coach continue to botch opportunities for teachable moments. Consider one from the offseason and another from this week.

Zenger prides himself on letting his coaches coach, generally a good quality in an athletic director. But in this case Zenger hired a first-year head coach and in so doing had to be willing to bend his non-interference approach and lend guidance. When Beaty came to his boss and told him he was going to take over coaching the quarterbacks, coordinating the offense and calling the plays, Zenger needed to throw up the stop sign. He needed to remind Beaty that as a head coach with an 0-12 career record and a roster shy on scholarship players and experienced blockers, he had his hands plenty full. He needed to remind him that his job now was to coach his coaches and hold them to high standards. Instead, Zenger let him demote offensive coordinator Rob Likens, then one-third of the way into a three-year, $1.05 million guaranteed contract, to a “walk-around guy.”

If telling Beaty that he could either keep Likens as his OC or make him the receivers coach and have Jason Phillips coordinate the offense would have constituted meddling, then Zenger should have stepped out of his comfort zone and meddled. Wise decisions must always trump comfortable ones.

Predictably, the offense hasn’t become any better under Beaty because scheming wasn’t the primary problem with it in the first place.

Beaty’s opportunity for a teachable moment came early this week when quarterback Montell Cozart came to him and asked if it would be all right to apologize to the team for his performance in Memphis. I don’t blame Cozart for doing that. He merely was following his coach’s lead after Beaty essentially apologized for the Memphis slaughter by saying it was all on him and he needed to get better, “a lot better.”

Beaty told Cozart that apologizing was a great idea and let him do it, a cringe-worthy moment in KU football history.

It would have been so much better had the coach told the quarterback that it was a bad idea and offered a better one: “Watch every play with the offense, stop the tape when you see someone make a mistake and jump down his throat for it. That’s leadership. That’s football.”

Sure, Cozart threw a horrible pass that was returned for a touchdown, but he wasn’t the play’s only culprit. Guard Jayson Rhodes whiffed on a blitzing linebacker and was on his back as the blitzer plowed into Cozart and the ball sailed into the hands of a defender. By apologizing to the team, Cozart took Rhodes off the hook. With a better block, Cozart hits open tight end Ben Johnson for a first down.

It’s been a strange couple of weeks.

At least Beaty can table any concerns about his job security. It’s good timing for Zenger as well. Then again, the new chancellor might have an AD in mind and make the move in the summer of 2017. That still would preserve Beaty’s third season, one he would coach under a microscope into which his new boss would view his every move before deciding on whether to give him a fourth.

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