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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 18, 2017

David Beaty

Lawrence, Kansas

Oklahoma - 41, Kansas - 3

DAVID BEATY: Just to start off with, just congratulating and give credit to Coach Riley and his staff. They did a good job coming away with the win today. They've got a good football team. There's no doubt about that for sure. I think they'll be a team to contend with as they move forward throughout the season for sure.

Let's go ahead and answer just questions. That way I can get what you're looking for.

Q. Do you have a sense of what happened that led your guys to not shake hands with Baker Mayfield at the pregame coin toss?
DAVID BEATY: I think I just said it in there. I'm proud of our guys for getting to a point, and not just -- we're not going to take it anymore. You're going to stick your feet in the ground and you're going to defend your grass. I think we've got to display with better than that, obviously, but I get it. I understand where they're coming from. I've got to do a better job as their coach maybe teaching them how to manage that a little bit better.

But I think maybe, when you get a chance to ask some of those guys, they'll tell you where it came from. But from our standpoint, we've got to talk about how we want to handle ourselves when it comes to those type of things.

I'll tell you this, I've got a classy bunch of kids in there that care about doing things right, and they want to represent this university well. So we'll move forward, and we'll make sure that we do that as we do it. But I certainly don't think it was anything more than the fact that this is a football game. It's a football game, and we're going to defend our grass. From that standpoint, I think it helped us. We were ready to go.

Q. At some point, it looked like Baker was kind of jawing after they scored in the third quarter, I think after that touchdown, he was either looking at your side of the field, your bench. I don't know if it was players or coaches or what. It seemed like he was kind of having a back and forth. Did you see what happened there?
DAVID BEATY: I mean, I saw him, but he's a competitor. I mean, guys do what they do. I'm not sure exactly what took place. He's not my player. So it's not my job to manage him. It's my job to get our guys to where they can -- they stop him where maybe a guy doesn't have that opportunity to do that.

I don't control him. He's a terrific player. I know that. I'll tell you what, I haven't seen any better. That guy is a really, really good football player. I'm not sure what he said, but I know Coach Riley is a classy guy. He'll manage it.

Q. Looks like your guys were fired up, from the beginning, especially with defense?
DAVID BEATY: They were fired up all week. They were ready for this opportunity. Certainly no disrespect to Oklahoma, it's just a great opportunity to have a team of that caliber come in, and you just get to see where you're at.

We didn't finish the game good enough. That score is not good enough. Those guys are mad. They're upset. I'm mad. I'm upset because I just know we're a better football team than what that score shows. It bothers me. It bothers them. I think we're a better football team than that, and we've got to go back to work tomorrow and making sure that doesn't happen again next week because we've got a great opportunity again next week in Stillwater.

I think they got beat today by a really good K-State team, and there's a lot of parity in this conference, and we've got good enough players to go anywhere and go in there and make some noise if we execute correctly and we do it with the right mindset, for sure.

Q. Some self-inflicted things (inaudible). I just am wondering, the Hasan Defense personal foul was pretty blatant. Did you consider that kind of a cheap shot from him?
DAVID BEATY: You know, honestly, I did not see. I was looking somewhere else. I'll find out. We talked a little bit about that in general at halftime. We've got to be smarter than that. Those chunk penalties kill you in situations. You go from trying to see if we were going to spend our time-out to what do we need to do now to keep them off the board and keep them out of the end zone?

And it turned into that because of just being a smarter team. We've got to be a smarter team in those situations. To say that was upsetting to our entire team heading into halftime, man, but we talked very eloquently at halftime about managing that situation.

I just thought we lost our focus a little bit on the game and being able to play the game and managing our emotions instead of wanting to jaw back and forth. Benton talks a little bit about maybe the jawing, and I saw it. I saw it. I get it. But that's not my job to manage the kid.

We have to be smarter than to buy into that. We've just got to be smarter than to buy into that because it wound up hurting us. He didn't get a penalty. I'm not saying that he shouldn't have. I'm not saying there was one right in front of our sideline that shouldn't have. But I don't control those guys, and they didn't get a penalty on it, and we did get a penalty on ours. So we've got to manage ourselves because it happens from time to time.

I thought that was a big play in that game in that second half. We had that drive down there, and we go down there and have an opportunity to score, and, man, a lot of contact happening in that end zone. You'd love to see what happened if that ball was on the 2 yard line there, and it was 21-, 3 and you've got a chance to maybe put seven on the board there. We wind up having to kick a field goal and miss it into the wind.

Unfortunately, that call was -- it turned out to be a pretty big call because I thought it could have made it a really interesting game at that point. But it is what it is.

Q. (Inaudible) have been kind of a point of emphasis for you? You mentioned that before. Especially defensively. What do you think of the way they came out and played strong most of that first half?
DAVID BEATY: I'm proud of them. I thought we controlled most of that first quarter for sure. Up until midway through that second quarter, I thought our guys did a really nice job of controlling both run and pass. Most of the plays that they were making, he was making off schedule. He was doing the things that Baker does because he's a talented guy.

We talked at length this week about what we've got to do when he breaks the pocket and when he's in scramble mode. Obviously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that you have to stay glued to every man.

The sad thing is our defender wasn't that far from 36. This kid threw a rope to that guy. I mean, that dude's talented. That was a hell of a throw. I'm sitting there going, oh, my God. I mean, I cannot believe that dude just made this throw because we were far away from it, but we've got to be closer. We should have been there to be closer.

We're going to look back at the tape, and what we're going to see is a guy stand up when he should have stayed bent. If he stayed bent, you don't have to bend. It makes a difference. I can guarantee you we're going to see a guy stand up instead of staying athletically bent, and that makes a difference when you're playing the No. 3 team in the country. We'll look back at it, and we'll say should have stayed bent. We would have stayed tight to that guy and made an even tougher throw. Now, he still might have got it in there because he's talented.

Q. Second quarter, you got that first and goal. Obviously, the wildcat not working because of the snap. Can you kind of explain why you guys like the wildcat in that situation?
DAVID BEATY: We like a lot of different things in that situation. The ball got snapped poorly, so I can't tell you whether we like it or not. I know this. From what we saw on tape, we felt like the angles were good. We've actually been pretty successful with that leading up until last week.

We had one missed point last week against Texas on the fourth down, but that actual set's been pretty good to us throughout the year. So I guess that should answer. I'd love to see what we could have done if we got the ball right to him.

Those are the type of things that they should be explainable, but I thought Mesa did a really nice job today. There's just one play where the ball just kind of flies away on him. What in the world happened? How does that happen? We talked to him on the sideline, and he said, you know, Coach, it felt exactly the same. I don't know what you're talking about. Because he's not seeing it all the way in.

Just unfortunate. We've got to be able to overcome it. We were still down there in scoring distance, and we should have been able to stick it in, and we weren't able to do it.

Q. Steven didn't really get involved in the offense until the second quarter. Was there a reason behind that?
DAVID BEATY: Steven is still trying to get well. Took a big hit against Texas last week. I thought our athletic training staff did a terrific job getting him back to being able to play this week because he was not looking good throughout the week. He's a tough dude. I didn't think he was going to be able to play.

After that first punt return, I thought he was done, and he just refused to go out. I got to give the guy credit. He's tough. He's a tough dude because I know he was hurting. We've got to get him well because he's one of our big play guys.

Q. Dorance finally got another sack. It's been a while. Was it good to see him have that kind of production?
DAVID BEATY: Absolutely. That kid deserves it. He's busted his tail. He's caused a lot of production for other people. He's done some really, really nice things for us. Seeing him get back there and get him down was a big deal. I think that will lead to more this week, I certainly hope.

He had a really good game. I think he had 6 tackles, 1.5 TFLs, a sack, one quarterback hurry. Up until that fourth quarter, I thought defensively our front was doing a pretty dadgum good job. They got pressure on him.

He's just good. He gets away. I told you all throughout the week the guy is really good. We hit him a few times, maybe more than anybody else did at times. He is a talented dude, really talented dude. I don't know how anybody is going to beat that dude in the Heisman. That dude is really good.

Y'all have a good one.

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