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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 28, 2017

David Beaty

Lawrence, Kansas

Kansas State - 30, Kansas - 20

DAVID BEATY: First of all, got to give Coach Snyder credit, his team. They did exactly what they have to do to win, which is exactly kind of the MO of their ball club. I thought they did a really nice job today of controlling field position. That's obviously a big, big factor in games, particularly when you're factoring in wins and losses. But there were some really good things on our side, as well.

I'm really proud of our guys, very unsatisfied, but really proud of the way our guys responded. Offensively coming back, being able to respond off of a couple weeks that were unacceptable, defensively seeing that unit continue to improve, and those guys were in an average starting field position of 46, and man, that's a big deal. Those guys being able to get off the field three times giving up a field goal with those type of odds makes it difficult.

I thought Clint Bowen and his staff continue to do a good job of building that defense and getting those guys better each week. Coach Meacham, I think he did a terrific job of putting a game plan together and making sure that we got our playmakers the ability to get the ball in their hands.

There were some good things today. I thought Carter did a great job in his first start for us this season. He did some of the things that we really thought he could do, and I was really proud of him, I'll go ahead and answer some questions for you.

Q. What went into the decision to go with Carter?
DAVID BEATY: You know, basically what we do each week is we look at the opponents and we look at what gives us the best chance to win. The good thing is both those guys, him and Peyton, are very, very good friends. They're roommates, and there for one another. When that decision was made, it was a very nice, smooth transition and Peyton did a nice job of being there for him.

Carter gives us a little bit more of an element to move around, and you've got to extend plays in this league to be able to do that. I think that really helped us today.

Q. Did he do enough for you to stick with him as the starting quarterback then?
DAVID BEATY: You know, you're only as good as your next day around here, but I thought he had a pretty good day. I thought he took care of the ball for the most part pretty well, he made good reads, he put the ball in positions to help us be able to move the chains, which is good. I thought he used his legs really well. I thought he played a really smart game, which is what we wanted to see out of him. I would see no reason why we wouldn't stay with him this week, but if a guy takes a couple days off, then we're not going to tolerate that, obviously. But I know he won't do that.

Q. You talked about the hidden third in the radio interview. Just to break it down a little more, how killer was the penalty when you guys were fair catching and he gets the personal foul?
DAVID BEATY: Yeah, I think that was an opportunity to go down there and tie the game, so obviously that hurt. But hey, listen, we work on backed up all the time. We had a couple opportunities to get out down there, and we weren't able to do it. We've got to make plays when that time comes, and we didn't do that. I'm really thankful that we didn't get sacked down there in the end zone on that first one and give up a safety, but we had our opportunity down there. That was unfortunate that that happened at that time.

You don't see that call very much. You just don't. I'm not sure really what happened. I'm going to have to really watch it on tape to see it, but man, that was a big call. There's no doubt about it, big call.

But I mean, that is what it is, man. You've got to play the cards you're dealt right down there, and we've got answers for that, we've just got to do a better job of finishing down there.

Q. Talk about having Mesa back as a stabilizing force on that O-line.
DAVID BEATY: It sure felt like it was a stabilizing force, it really did. You know guys are big parts of your ball club and you get that and you know it, but once you are not with them and then they come back and you see things change dramatically, you know how important they are to you. I just -- I'm excited that we have him back, put it that way. It really helped us.

And I thought we were able to run the ball decently today. We need to run it a little bit better than what we did, but that's a good front now. Those guys do a really good job. I've watched every dadgum thing that's on tape for them about 19 times, and I wanted them to be worse than they were. They're pretty good up front. I knew we had our hands full, and for us to not give up just a whole bunch of sacks today was a big deal because they get to the quarterback a lot.

Q. You guys have been, especially early in the year, a lot more aggressive going for it on 4th down. I was curious what went into that decision, 4th and 3 from the 41.
DAVID BEATY: Yeah, there's a lot of study that's been done throughout sport, particularly in football obviously on 4th down, and the value of touchdowns. And there's a lot of analytics that go into it, and we stay pretty close to the analytics. We stay pretty close to it. There are certain things where you have to go with your feel and situationals, but that one there was an analytic call. It was the right call based on the analytics that we had there.

Q. Are there analytics for 4th and 3?
DAVID BEATY: Like I said, what our analytics told us at that point was that was the right thing to do, and with our defense playing the way that we were playing, I thought we had a good chance to get the ball back.

Q. This had to be a tough game to come back from that TCU game. What have you seen from your team throughout the week?
DAVID BEATY: I think I've said it pretty much every week. I really like this team. I think if there's one word that comes to mind for me, it's resiliency. They are a resilient bunch. They come in on Sunday, and they block out. I know that there's a lot of things that go on out there in that world that makes it very difficult on young men, particularly if they know or they read or they see, but our guys, they've done a really nice job of blocking some things out that probably would affect some other guys, and that's really always been the key for them and for us was to be able to block those things out and know what the job is at hand and that we're doing the work. So when we're doing the work, we know what the issues are, and it's up to us to fix it.

Q. You guys took the lead; what did you see on the 99-yard kickoff return, third straight week with them?
DAVID BEATY: Yeah, we knew they were dangerous. We struggled in the specialist department today, placement of kicks, that we've got to just get better at. We've got really talented, capable guys there, and you know, today just wasn't their day. I mean, the placement on that last kick was obviously not where we wanted it. They've got very dangerous guys back there. We knew that. Placement really is a big, big deal in college football in terms of where you put those balls, where you put the balls and where your coverage is headed, particularly when you have very explosive guys.

Now, we still have to cover it. We still have to cover it, but the ball being placed is so critical, and we didn't do a very good job of that at all today, and that hurt. That caused a lot of the hidden yardage.

And the thing about that that I think probably hurts the most is that that's something that you control. They really didn't do much to be able to gain from that. It was a mistake we made. And we just have to be better than that. We have to be better than that.

Q. Dorance's absence in the second half was noticeable, but can you explain the way the defense stuck together and kept working?
DAVID BEATY: Yeah, they did, and you know, they kept playing. They kept working, trying to get to the quarterback. They kept fitting the runs, and those are difficult runs to fit against this group. They do such a great job on offense.

I thought our guys, our linebackers played terrific. I thought our D-line did a really nice job of holding gaps for the majority of the day, and you know, without Dorance in there, that's something that you look at and you go, wow, man, that's a lot of production that walks out the door. That very first drive, he knocks a ball out and we get a fumble there created by him.

But those guys stepped up and they kept playing. I didn't notice a difference without him in there with the huddle, right. If you asked me if I would want to play without Dorance, hell no I wouldn't want to play without Dorance, but I was proud of the guys that stepped in there because they looked like they stepped in and they did the job. They actually did a really nice job, got off the field several times there. That second to last 1st down, man, we were so close to getting them off, and they completed that little pass over there on the right side that was a big deal. They drilled their field goal when they needed to, and that put it out of reach, you know.

We were about to go kick a field goal there early and see if we could onside kick it and see if we could go down from there. We were trying to do a couple things to get three shots at the end zone and see if we could go ahead and get an onside kick and be ready to kick a field goal. We were just two scores out, and that made it difficult.

But the thing I really liked about it was our guys kept working. They were in it, they understood it, we prepared for those situations, and they continued to work until the very last play.

Q. Do you have a sense of the severity of Dorance's injury?
DAVID BEATY: I don't yet. He was just unavailable for the second half. We'll see how he responds. I haven't actually spoke to the trainers too much about it yet.

Q. What did you like about your guys offensively?
DAVID BEATY: Well, I like that they protected pretty well up front. I liked that our receivers did a nice job responding and getting open and making some plays that they really needed to make that were going to be contested. We knew they had good defensive backs that were going to contest catches. I thought we made some really nice contested catches.

Evan Fairs, man, he almost had that last one down there. That would have given us a really nice there. But tat guy did a great job defending it. He played it all the way to the ground. Man, that's Coach Snyder's teams. You've got to take your hat off to him because that's the difference when you play guys like that is the years of coaching that he's put out there. I mean, he produces guys that just -- they play solid, sound football. He did a nice job, that kid; give him credit.

Q. That play in the fourth quarter that was ruled initially as targeting on Mike Lee, while that play was being reviewed, what explanation were you being given by the ref on what he saw?
DAVID BEATY: You know, they did a really good job talking to us about what was going on. Basically talking about what the key things they're going to be looking for. Obviously we saw it on the screen, and we felt like it would be overturned. But you never really can tell because it's going to upstairs, sometimes it even goes to Dallas where they look at it, but we felt pretty comfortable that it was going to get overturned, which was good.

Q. Seems like you're pretty happy with how the offense played, with how the defense played. Was the special teams just so many mistakes it really cost you a chance to win this game?
DAVID BEATY: Well, I mean, if you saw that football game, I think you would have a hard time not realizing where our breakdown was. And we had several of them on the offensive and defensive side of the ball, too. It never lands in one area. I'm going to go look at that tape and I'm going to say, wow, that would have been a big deal right there, right. I think it's going to be one of those deals where we have to play complementary football through and through, all three phrases, and you've got to do it against Coach Snyder's teams, against Kansas State, because they're going to do it. They did it, and that's how they won the game.

Q. Talking about blocking out some of the distractions, somebody flew a plane over Memorial Stadium before the game with a banner that said, fire Zenger. What's your reaction?
DAVID BEATY: I didn't see that, but that's asinine. I mean, I don't know a man that loves this university as much as he does. I don't know anybody that thinks about it, cares about it, has done everything that we've asked him to do more than Dr. Zenger. That's crazy. I mean, I don't have any other words for it. He's our leader, and we believe in him, and we always have, and it's never been a question. I mean, it's unfortunate. I think maybe is the best thing to say because all of us that are doing the work, we know the real truth.

Q. About the punting game there in the second half, you have a pretty reliable punter and he just had a bad day, was just shanking the ball off the side of his foot?
DAVID BEATY: Yeah, he struggled. He just had a bad day. You know, that guy is a talented guy. I'll tell you what, we don't have a harder worker in our fieldhouse. I mean, him and Booker are probably the two most highly looked at kids on our football team. They care. Nobody works harder than he does. Nobody is hurting more than he's hurting right now. I can assure you that, and we're not going to trade him in. I love him. I wish he had a better day, but you know what, it didn't happen. We're going to need him down the road here, so we're going to put our arms around him, and we're going to move forward.

Q. (Indiscernible) the special teams workouts, I guess?
DAVID BEATY: I think as you look at the hidden yardage, I think that pretty much tells the tale because both teams took care of the ball fairly decent. I mean, you've got to do a good job in covering kicks. This is a very -- it's college football, man, one of the most difficult things in this profession is to cover kicks. You've got to do a good job of it, right? We need to kick the ball out of the end zone, we've got guys that are capable of doing it, and we really need to get that thing out of the end zone so it doesn't give them a chance to return it, as well. We didn't have a great day there, but those guys will all rebound. They'll rebound.

Thank you, guys. Y'all have a good one.

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