	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 9, 2017

David Beaty

Lawrence, Kansas

Central Michigan - 45, Kansas - 27

DAVID BEATY: First of all, just give credit to Central Michigan, Coach Bonamego and his staff did a really nice job. I thought they did a really good job offensively. They did not play like that last week.

I knew coming into this game that he is way too good of a football coach for his team not to play better. They certainly did that. I thought defensively they played pretty good. They had a good plan coming in.

They did some things that I thought helped them early in the game, I thought we adjusted there late. It helped us. But I don't think we did enough to be able to get over the hump.

There were some times where I thought we had a little momentum going and we just couldn't sustain it. We got to be able to be better collectively. We certainly didn't play great collectively tonight.

When the offense needed the defense, we weren't there. When the defense needed the offense, we just weren't there today. We got to get better in that area.

There's a lot of things we got to do to get better. We understand that. We'll come back ready to go tomorrow. That's one thing I do know. I believe in our staff, I believe in our kids, I believe in our team. Much like them, I think we got a chance to get a lot better between now and next week. We have no choice. There's a game coming up next week against a really good opponent. We're going to their place. We'll have them ready to go.

We'll take some questions.

Q. How disappointed were you in the effectiveness of the passing game, especially considering where you were a week ago?
DAVID BEATY: Well, I mean, there were times when we were doing some decent things, then just not being able to be consistent was probably the biggest thing.

I thought we made a couple of really, really rough throws early in the game there that went into turnovers. We got to take care of the ball. We can't be throwing the ball to the other team. We had one that the went right down the middle of the field. We just got to be smarter than that.

That's something I expect out of Peyton. He's a really good player, a smart guy. He made a mistake there, he'll learn from it. We just can't put it in jeopardy like that.

I thought we did some decent things throughout the game. We just weren't able to sustain it early in the game. One of my biggest issues was kicking that field goal down there early. There was no need for that. We were down there on the two yard line, one yard line, we had two downs left in our mind. We wind up jumping off-sides down there. You can't do that. Good teams don't do that. That was a big deal.

I thought there were some good things in the passing game. But wasn't till later in the game that I thought we started really effectively running the ball well. That was good to see as we started picking it up, but not enough to get in the end zone.

Q. A lot of their receivers seemed like they were really open. Is that communication issues? Speed issues?
DAVID BEATY: From the other team?

Q. Yes.
DAVID BEATY: Listen, a couple of them are just busted coverages. Not good communication back there. There was a huge play down there when they wound up throwing that quarter route on their sideline fairly early in the game. That was a big play, a big play. Then we give up another long play down the sideline right before half on a little hitch-and-go. We just weren't disciplined with our eyes.

We knew what they could do, and we just didn't do a good job of it. I don't think we did a good job of communicating the back end. When you don't do that, you're in two different coverages, the ball is going to find you, especially when you're playing a guy like Shane does. I thought he played really well. He did a good job.

We made it awfully easy on him at times. I don't think we did a very good job handling those twist routes down by the goal line. Seems like they were making those throws fairly easy. We weren't jumping through those pick plays down there. Their credit, they didn't pick us. They played the way they were supposed to and executed. We didn't get coverage on it.

I didn't think we were competitive knocking the ball down very much. That's disappointing. You better be competing for the ball. We need to be competing. It needs to be contested catches. It didn't happen like that today. We got to figure that out quick or it's going to be a long year. That can't happen again. That was uncharacteristic of us. I thought we usually play pretty good back there. We didn't play very good back there today.

Q. Did the O-line struggle with pass protection a little bit today?
DAVID BEATY: There were times they did. But if you look at it, some of it had to do with how long we were holding the ball. Those guys, they were in a drop-eight situation a few times. Not a lot of open windows back there. Just got to pull it down and run it sometimes in those situations.

Everybody is accounted for, except for the quarterback. He can't just stand there and hold it forever. He's going to have to understand he's going to get his five and live with that.

I thought we put him in a little bit of a bad position there by holding it so long because our reads shouldn't be taking that long unless people are getting held up.

But you know what, I thought they came back. We threw it 62 times. That's a lot of times to throw the football, a lot. We've got to get more balance there. I think they were 34-32, something like that. We've got to certainly be more balanced than that. We don't want to throw the ball that much.

Q. There were some drops, but was accuracy Peyton's biggest issue?
DAVID BEATY: Inconsistency and accuracy. There are times he made some good throws. I thought our guys made some great catches at times. It was a little tough. They got pressure on him. Once again, a lot of times it was late. It wasn't, like, early. He wasn't getting, like, hit early. He was holding it, holding it. We just got to do a better job of knowing they're dropping eight. You can take off running, get us five yards, like Shane Morris did that a couple times today. I thought he did a nice job of it.

Q. Last drive before the half, the turnover, another score before the half. How disappointing is that sequence?
DAVID BEATY: That killed us. That was a big, big deal. You know, the thing is, you come out at halftime and you get some momentum like that, then you don't think at all that you're going to go in and give up that touchdown right there. That was very disappointing. We can't do that defensively. There can't be mix-ups in those situations.

And we got to get off the field on third down. I don't know how they were on third down, but they had to be stinking great pause we didn't get them off very much. That's disappointing.

I'll have to look at the tape to be sure what happened. But, you know, I just don't think we played very good up front either. That's another thing. Didn't get much pass-rush. He had a lot of time to throw. Credit those guys, they did a good job. Last week I didn't think they did a great job in pass protection. They certainly made some strides. I don't know maybe if they did some things different or what, but it didn't look like it. I think they just played better.

That's no surprise because Bonamego does a good job.

Q. How big of a back breaker was the fourth quarter touchdown?
DAVID BEATY: It was a big deal. They were all big. Things happened early on. The false start down there early, I mean, that killed us. Personal foul where we had them about to get off the field, we had a guy ejected there. Those are things we just can't do. That killed us. I mean, so many self-inflicted things you'd like to see yourself get better at. You know, we just didn't. We didn't do it for whatever reason.

I'll tell you this. I know that our guys, as I watch them and look at them in the huddle, the frustration level from them was not one where they're going to make mistakes because of that. That was good to see. I want to give them credit there. They kept fighting and they kept going. They tried to play smart and not do stupid stuff by trying to hit people late.

I thought we had a late hit, Mike, I thought it was a little close down there. But, hey, I don't fault him when he's playing hard, as long as it's close and you don't just do something dumb.

What's most disappointing to me is where we cut it down to four, I believe it was, and then we just couldn't get them off the field there. That was probably as big a back breaker as anything. Then we weren't able to go answer the bell offensively and get it back.

We just didn't play good collectively today. But like I said, there's a lot of football left. We'll be ready to go next week. Not a very good game by us today.

Q. Dom Williams, second college game. What are you seeing out of him?
DAVID BEATY: There's a reason we played him a lot today. We weren't sure we were going to have him. We thought he was going to be unavailable because he had a rough go at it in practice this week on a couple things. But he's a tough sucker because I wasn't sure he was going to be available. He did some nice things today. He did. He can get a lot better at some things, as well, but I like him as a back.

Q. Can you talk about what happened to Sims the second half?
DAVID BEATY: We tried to get Sims going, but he couldn't push off. Obviously there's some things that went on with him injury-wise, we just couldn't get him off. I thought our medical staff did a terrific job. I mean, they worked their tails off all week to try to get it right.

He tried, to his credit. When you're missing a dynamic guy like that, makes it a little bit difficult. But, hey, we got other guys that can do it. We certainly know Chase is. We've got to be more consistent with guys, as well.

Quan Hampton did some good things, a young guy out there, but he's got to take care of the ball. Can't turn it over. We got lucky on that one. Just got to do a better job of taking care of the football. That's been a theme. We haven't been able to master that one yet. It's a shame because I can't tell you how many things we do when it comes to ball security. I mean, it's about half our practice. So we've got to do a better job of taking care of it. We can't throw it to them. We have to get more turnovers. We didn't do that today either.

Q. Did you contemplate at any point late in the game going to a second-string quarterback?
DAVID BEATY: No, we didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about that at all. You know, we wound up moving the ball down there late. Ended up going down there and getting another touchdown. We felt pretty good about going down there again and getting in there again, but we just stalled.

The amazing thing, if there's any silver lining for me, it's that we went for it about four or five times at fourth down today. I think we might have been four out of five or something like that on long sticks, which is good to see, really good to see. I'd like to see us do it on third down, not get to fourth. The analytics we use is something that's paying off for us.

Thanks, y'all.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297