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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYSJuly 16, 2018David BeatyFrisco, Texas THE MODERATOR: We're are now joined on the podium by David Beaty from Kansas. Coach, welcome and your thoughts? DAVID BEATY: Great to be back in my hometown of Dallas, Texas. Always fun to be home. This time last year we brought, Armstrong and he has a star on his helmet playing for the Cowboys. We're excited to have another Jayhawk in the NFL. This year we brought Joe Dineen back with us. He was last year's nation's leader in solo tackles. He is approaching the school record for TFLs, a local boy from Lawrence, Kansas and has been a huge part of our team and the leadership on it. We also have Steven Sims, a Texas kid, Fort Bend, Texas, Big 12 Player of the Week last year, against Kansas State, 233 yards receiving, the third highest single game receiving in the Big 12 last year. Steven Sims and Hakeem Butler who plays for Iowa State played on the same high school football team. I would hate to be defending those guys in a high school situation. Two terrific players. Khalil Herbert, kid out of South Florida. He has some interesting stories. But last year he was the Big 12 single game leader in rushing. He had a 291 yard performance against West Virginia at home. That was a great accomplishment by him. He's a preseason third-team pick by a Big 12 team. He was greatly impacted in the off-season by the loss of one of his high school coaches in the Parkland tragedy, Coach Feis, who was a dear, dear friend of his and he was affected by that. We certainly have been there to help support him as he's went through that SXN finally we brought Daniel Wise, from right down the street, Hebron High School, produced a bunch of players. But Daniel's dad, he may be walking around here somewhere you might want to recruit him. He still looks like he could play. Played in the NFL, bounced around there, went to the Canadian League. His brother plays who played at Arkansas now plays for the New England Patriots and went to the Super Bowl this year. They all are monsters and this kid has been a terrific leader for us and was our leader in sacks last year and we think he has a chance to have great year. So some really great kids with some great stories I hope we can share with you as we are here or the next day. We're excited to welcome Jeff Long to the Jayhawk family he comes with a great deal of experience and we're eager to see the positive impact he's going to bring to our athletic department. We think he's going to fall in love with the University of Kansas just like we have, and in fact in my talks with him it looks like he and his wife Fanny are already on the way. That's a good thing. We look forward to him getting to know our football players and coaches and I firmly believe he's going to fall in love with the culture these men have created and we're excited for him to be a part of this with us. As we go forward looking to this season one of the things that gives us optimism as we head into it is the amount of experience we have coming back. As we enter the 2018 season we're eager to see the impact that our seniors and returning starters are going to have on this team. We have 26 seniors which is a ton more than we have had in my tenure, eight returning starters on offense, 9 on defense and several specialists. The most exciting thing overall is we have improved and it's going to add depth and create competition even author those starters, so that's a good thing for us as we move forward. In closing, our vision continues to remain the same at KU with our program. It's to build a championship program that stands the test of time. We believe that that is a direct by-product of creating one good man at a time. One good teammate, one good father, one good husband, one good productive member of society. The by product of that is going to be championships and long-term success. Our guys have put the work in, but they know that's the price of admission and there are a lot of things that we feel like we have learned over the last few years that are going to give us an edge. With that being said, I look forward to taking questions today. Q. Coach, obviously people will give you credit for getting these scholarships back up and building this thing back up but heading into year four what is that win total this program needs to see that success and growth on the field that hasn't been there? DAVID BEATY: Well, the name of the game in college sports is production. We feel like we understand that that is no different for us than it is for anyone else, production is the name of the game. So when it comes to our preparation that's not going to change. We're going to start with game one and the goal is to go 1-0, to win that game and then put just as much focus on that next game to be able to do the same and repeat that. When it comes to a win total, I don't have that answer. I don't know that many people do, but I know this: I've bet around Christmas time we know. Q. In your talks with Jeff, what expectations has he given you about where he would like to see the football program this upcoming season? DAVID BEATY: First of all, I love that shirt. That's a good-looking shirt. We have had great talks to this point and it has been introductory in nature. We have not been on campus at the same time. He has taken his family and they're head to go a much-needed vacation and they're going to get away for a while and I was on vacation last week. We have communicated quite a bit. The thing that I really love about talking with him is his vision and I've always believe that your vision pulls you and as we talk about how he wants to create a championship at KU in all areas, we share the same things when it comes to how you get that done, the values that he shares are exactly what we share which I think it's going to be a terrific marriage between us as we move forward and the thing that he also has shared with us is that he is completely and totally behind us and anything he can do to help he's there to do it. Q. Coach, you had a lot of success recruiting Louisiana in 2018. Is that a pipeline you are hoping to continue to go back to in the future? DAVID BEATY: Obviously, we feel like there is a lot of talent in that area. I think the key thing was the hiring of Tony Hull, literally a rocket scientist, used to work on the fuel tank there at NASA and he got back into high school sports to try to give back. Gave up a high-paying salary to do that. I recruited when I was at Texas A&M and got to know Tony and realized he was connected to just about everyone in that area. His school he could only take certain guys so he literally started filling his competition with terrific players. He wasn't afraid of that. His goal was to help players in that area, help kids in that area, to help them benefit from that. So his relationships with those guys down there have been very, very important and pivotal. We just signed the two highest rated guys in KU history. Since there have been rankings kept, Corione Harris and Pooka Williams are the two highest rated guys that have been signed and a lot of that goes to Tony Hull and the connections he has down there. Q. Dave, I wanted to ask you about stadium construction. Kansas has spruced up their stadium, pulling out the turf and the track and stuff. How vital is it for you as a coach to have something new to show recruits? DAVID BEATY: Right. You know, it's a new era that we live in and I think the big thing for all of us is to understand that it's really important to the youth in America right now. They're looking at universities, and we stimulate them when they come to campus. I believe sometimes they're ruling people out and they don't realize it. They're unique in terms of the way they think. They do operate off being stimulated and a lot of people have gotten that and understood it. Look no further than this place right here. These people get fan experience. They get what fans want. This place is phenomenal. That's really I think what's happening in college sports. We just embarked on, we're about halfway through with the building of our brand new $26 million indoor that is going to be a crown jewel, football only indoor, I think we're the last team in the Power Five to have our dedicated indoor, which is powerful and we're moving forward with renovating Memorial Stadium which is something our fans deserve and we are excited about and we understand that and I know Jeff is going to bring a welcome knowledge in doing those things, one of the things I'm excited about with him. He's got great vision and connections with the people that design places than understand stimulating young people. Q. Tell us about the quarterback position, Dave. We know Carter and Peyton, but I know you have a transfer that is eligible. What's that competition look like going into this fall? DAVID BEATY: It is still a competition, Baldy. Peyton started the season, went down with an injury. Carter came in, played a few games and he went down with an injury and Peyton was well enough to come back and play in the final game. We have signed Miles Kendrick out of San Mateo who has been a great addition to that room, but we're going to narrow it down to two pretty quick and our guys understand that there is an urgency to get yourself into the top two but we're going to prepare all three because it's a rough and tumble league for quarterbacks. But we would like it get it down to "the guy" pretty quickly. I'm not going to give a timeline, but we want to get it done pretty quickly. Q. Can you expand more about Khalil and what you guys have done for him this off-season and what he's had to go through with everything going on back home? DAVID BEATY: Right. I won't expand a whole lot because I want to leave that to Khalil and respect his grieving process. I will say I am always amazed at what our university, David Reed, compliance in general in the NCAA is willing to do for kids. For them to do what they did to help us get him down there to be able to honor Coach Feis and be there for that funeral, there are a lot of things that get reported. But there are things that need to be reported and the fact that all of those people stood up and did what they needed to do to make sure Khalil was there I thought was a testament to the NCAA class and David Reed is huge for us on our campus in understanding how that works and I thank them for allowing that to happen. We've done everything that we can in our process to be able to make sure we're there for Khalil. When you meet him you will find out he's an unbelievable young man, he was born with more fingers than most of us, I think it was 12, we were upset he cut the other two off because it was a ball security advantage. But I guess he wanted to just have ten, but he takes care of the ball pretty good anyway. He has interesting stories. Khalil will be fun to talk to. Q. Unfortunate incident in Lawrence before the Oklahoma game last year, both sides before the game, during the game, all that, what have you learned from that or your team has learned from that? How can every side avoid that kind of thing in the future? DAVID BEATY: Right. You know, I know for our team, I will speak for our team that we learned a lot about that. We learned that this game is all about class. It's about representing your university, your fans, your stakeholders and when you make decisions that those decisions got to be based on more than just ourselves. The young men that were involved in that, there is a couple of them here today and I can assure you they're unbelievable young men. They stood up and did what they needed to do to be able to face the criticism that came along with that. So we learned a lot, not just what happened but how you face the criticism when it comes along with it. We as a team believe there is no place for that in college athletics. We've got a good thing going and we want to be a positive part of it, not a negative part of it. We have a terrific platform, terrific platform. But it can only be terrific when we use it. We've got to use it in the right ways. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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