Kansas Jayhawks Football is Heading in the Right Direction under Coach David Beaty

Written By Charlie Beuttel

Twitter: Charlie_cd3

With fourteen wins over the last seven seasons, it is safe to say that the Kansas Jayhawks are in a slump. The Jayhawks are also under their fourth head coach during that span hiring former Texas A&M wide receivers coach, David Beaty, on Dec. 5, 2014 to right the ship. With Beaty’s recent recruiting efforts, hope is coming back to the football program in Lawrence.

Beaty replaced Charlie Weis, who was fired in September 2014 taking over after Turner Gill posted a 5-19 record from 2010-11. Clint Bowen was the interim head coach after Weis was dismissed finishing the year 1-7. After Coach Beaty was hired, Coach Bowen was named co-defensive coordinator and assistant head coach. In 2015, Beaty’s first season at the helm, the Jayhawks finished a disappointing 0-12 for their first winless season since 1954. However, there is still hope around Lawrence that Coach Beaty is the man to turn this program around. In 2016, Jayhawk fans started to see progress.

Kansas opened the season by destroying Rhode Island (34-6) to give Coach Beaty his first win as head coach. Unfortunately, the Jayhawks then suffered through a nine-game losing streak with close losses to TCU (24-23) on Oct. 8 and Iowa State (31-24) on Nov. 12. On Nov. 19, Kansas hosted the Texas Longhorns and won a thrilling 24-21 game in overtime to win their second contest of the season. It was the Jayhawks first win over Texas since 1938. In the final week of the season, Kansas fell to their archrival Kansas State (34-19) to finish the year 2-10.

On Feb. 1, the Jayhawks finished National Signing Day with 21 total recruits, 13 signed that day while eight of them enrolled in January. Among the early enrollees were former Washington State quarterback Peyton Bender, who spent last season at Itawamba Community College in Mississippi, and cornerbacks Hasan Defense, who played at Kilgore Junior College in Texas, and Shakial Taylor, who played at Mesa Community College in Arizona. Among the 13 recruits who sign on Feb. 1 were wide receivers Travis Jordan (6-2, 185), from John Ehret High School in Louisiana, and Kenyon Tabor (6-4, 215) from Derby High School in Kansas. Another quality signee is cornerback Robert Topps (6-2, 180) from Chicago.

On Feb. 4, Kansas hosted a Junior Day with prospects in the Class of 2018 from all over the country attending. Many of the recruits that made the trip to Lawrence received offers from the Jayhawks coaching staff. After the event, the Jayhawks received verbal commitments from six recruits including five from Louisiana. Two of the commits, wide receiver Devonta Jason and cornerback Corione Harris, are teammates at Landry-Walker in New Orleans and won the 5A state championship this past season. Both Harris and Jason are former LSU commits but backed off their commitments this past July.

The second set of teammates, safety Aaron Brule and wide receiver JaMarr Chase play at Archbishop Rummel in Metairie just outside of New Orleans. Brule also has offers from several other schools including Arkansas and Tennessee while Chase also has several offers including Ole Miss, TCU, and Tennessee. The fifth verbal commit from the Boot came from running back Anthony Williams, who plays at Hahnville High School in Boutte. Williams’ offers includes Mississippi State and Memphis but was also drawing interest from LSU and Texas.

Quarterback Clayton Tune from Hebron High School in Carrollton (TX) gave the Jayhawks their sixth verbal of the day to wrap up an unforgettable day. During his junior season in 2016, Tune threw for 2,445 yards and 22 touchdowns while rushing 512 yards and eight more scores.

Jason and Harris are both former teammates of current Jayhawk cornerback Mike Lee, who had a great freshman season at KU in 2016 as he was named to the 247sports True Freshman All-American team and finished with 77 total tackles including 1.5 for a loss, two forced fumbles and one interception.

One big factor that sent up this pipeline from Louisiana to Lawrence was the hire of Coach Tony Hull. Coach Hull was hired as the Jayhawks running backs coach on March 1, 2016. Coach Hull does a great job of recruiting Louisiana for future Jayhawks and is the head recruiter for Williams, Jason, and Harris. Before coming to Kansas, Coach Hull was the head coach and offensive coordinator at Warren Easton High School in New Orleans where he coached Class of 2016 Kansas signee Tyriek Starks.

We still have almost a year until National Signing Day 2018 and it’s unclear if the verbal commits will change their mind or if they will stay true to KU. There is also plenty of time for Head Coach Beaty and his coaching staff to add more quality recruits to this already stacked class which is currently ninth in the nation on 247sports.

No matter the outcome in recruiting, Coach Beaty, Coach Bowen, and Coach Hull are doing a great job leading this program out of the rebuilding phase. With these men in charge, Jayhawk fans should know that the future is bright in Lawrence.

Photo credit: Jayhawkslant.com; Running Backs Coach Tony Hull.