David Beaty fired: 5 factors Kansas must consider in coaching search

A decade of futility and coaching changes has put the Kansas football team among the worst in the Power Five conferences.

For those not up to speed on recent college football history, a decade ago Kansas was completing back-to-back winning seasons. Yes, Kansas. Under Mark Mangino, the Jayhawks were 8-5 in 2008, following up a storybook 2007 where they finished 12-1 with an Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech.

Yes, that Kansas. The school that announced Sunday that it would change coaches for the fourth time since 2010. The school that has won 18 games this decade and with just five of those wins in the Big 12 Conference.

KU has arguably been the worst Power Five team since 2010. Now the Jayhawks will move on from David Beaty, who will coach the rest of this, his fourth season. Mangino, for a brief period, proved that Kansas could be competitive in football. An hour down I-70, Bill Snyder took over the nation’s worst program and built a winner.

It can be done. Possibly. Maybe.

Athletic director Jeff Long has been on the job for five months. Previously at Arkansas, one of the reasons he was hired was to fix the football program. The easy part is over. Now Long must find the right fit.

Here are five factors/questions that are in play:

Experience necessary

Beaty was a receivers coach at Texas A&M before former Kansas AD Sheahon Zenger hired him at Kansas. Previous coach Charlie Weis had nuked the roster and Beaty inherited a team that had 38 players on scholarship. He was sent into a machine gun fight with a spork.

This is no job for a hot-shot assistant coach or coordinator. The next leader of the Mission: Impossible Force will have head coaching experience.

The guessing game

Long, when he was at Arkansas, tried to hire Les Miles when Miles was at LSU. Kansas could have announced Miles, who is a free agent, as the new coach at Sunday’s news conference. Because that didn’t happen, now Long can take his time and fish in many ponds. And, if Miles is interested, he’s always a fallback option, a coach fired from his last gig wanting one more chance.

By announcing that Beaty is done after three more games, Long has let any interested coach know the job is open. Now the seduction dance begins with agents contacting Long and vice versa as temperatures are taken and interest is implied or denied.

The type of coach

Veterans like Miles (who also coached at Oklahoma State) will be considered because they’ve fought the battles. Former Arkansas (where he worked for Long) and Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema is working for the New England Patriots so he’s soaking up the Belichick Way. Jim Leavitt, who built the program at USF and is now the defensive coordinator at Oregon, spent time on Snyder’s staff at Kansas State.

Any coach with a Power Five track record would sooth the few remaining KU diehards. A gamble is trying to hire the up and comer, the young coach working at a Group of Five school. There are plenty of those to choose from, but the challenge might be convincing them to take a job many consider a career killer.

The style of play

The Big 12 is known for its high-scoring offensive teams and schemes. One of several reasons why Kansas has struggled has been the inability to find a quarterback capable of competing with quarterbacks like Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes, Kyler Murray and Will Grier.

One theory that could be a pathway for the Jayhawks to succeed is to zig while the other Big 12 teams zag. Hire a coach whose offensive philosophy is an outlier. Army, a triple option team, took Oklahoma to overtime before losing. The Sooners’ defense, with just a week to prepare, was baffled by the blocking schemes, quarterback keepers and pitch plays.

In 2011, K-State won the Big 12 title with a running quarterback and a ground game that played time-of-possession keep away from the league’s high-scoring offenses. In boxing, styles make fights. Perhaps Kansas can stop being a punching bag with a different style on offense.

When does basketball season start?

Other than when Mangino’s teams had success, Kansas fans have regarded football as a placeholder until Bill Self’s Jayhawks start their quest for another Big 12 regular-season title. (Perhaps the sports gods have decreed that a school that has such success in one sport must cede winning in the other money-making endeavor.)

Saturday’s 27-3 home loss to Iowa State apparently was the trigger mechanism for Long. There were more Cyclones fans in the stadium than KU fans. And a week before, Beaty was quoted as saying he the empty seats can be an edge (in Bizarro World fashion) because visiting teams are shocked at the lack of support. (The total attendance for the three Big 12 home games is 48,976 – which almost be a sellout.)

The Kansas athletic department has upgraded football offices and the locker room and has started a $350 million upgrade to Memorial Stadium that includes construction of an indoor practice facility. A miserable football team makes raising donations beyond difficult. Hopefully Long can find a coach who will provide hope for improvement.

By the way, the answer to the question is Tuesday. The top-ranked Jayhawks take on No. 10 Michigan State.