David Beaty’s right-hand man, Kenny Perry, moved from coaching cornerbacks, which he did his first three seasons at Kansas, to coordinating special teams. So far, good move. Kansas had a strong special teams play in the opener, a 26-23 overtime loss to Nicholls State.
Stephon Robinson blocked a punt. Kyron Johnson recovered a muffed punt. Gabriel Rui made field goals of 54 and 41 yards. Kyle Thompson averaged 47 yards on his eight punts.
Perry also is KU’s recruiting coordinator, a position for which he seemed well suited given all of his connections with high school coaches in the Dallas area. Perry was a head high school football coach for 13 seasons at three different schools and in 2007 was named Dallas Morning News Coach of the Year.
As it turned out, though, Kansas hasn’t been able to turn the program around and even connections can’t overcome that. He recruited well in a brief stint at TCU, but recruiting Texas players to a perennial winner at a Texas university and enticing them to come to Kansas is a completely different challenge.
It’s easy to envision Perry giving a motivational pregame speech. He has the right personality for it and his background as a successful high school coach means he is experienced at it. But Perry’s so closely tied to Beaty that if the head coach is replaced during the season, Perry likely will not be where Kansas turns for an interim leader.
