Well, you can’t win ’em all, and luckily for the Jayhawks, they have two wins already in 2018, so they won’t lose ’em all either.
Another fantastic defensive outing washed away with an inconsistent offensive attack and #NotGreat coaching. Ah yes, a classic Kansan tale. David Beaty is the Wicked Witch of Campus North.
Against #9 West Virginia, all three phases needed to be perfect and the coaching needed to be flawless, but this is David Beaty we’re talking about, so you know Kansas had 10 guys on the field for an important third down early in the game. No, seriously!!!
The worst part of it all is that the play calling actually wasn’t THAT bad, they were far more aggressive than I’ve ever seen under Beaty and the coach was fired up showing passion on the sideline on multiple occasions. He looked like a man trying to save his job. And while he probably didn’t exactly accomplish that yesterday, it was refreshing to see.
Give Them a Break, They’re a Basketball School
The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. This is going to be David Beaty’s last season in Lawrence. The inability to pick a quarterback. The rotation of guys week in, week out is EXHAUSTING, and allowing Carter Stanley to make a well deserved start to only pull him in the first quarter seemed like it had to be the last straw.
Yet pulling Stanley for Peyton Bender seemed to work a tiny bit. Stanley was struggling, and while the move wasn’t originally appreciated, it made the morning game much more competitive. Bender actually hit a few downfield targets, the passing game was opened up slightly and the Jayhawks weren’t playing scared.
How About That Defense?!
38 points isn’t great and I hate to make a ton of excuses for Kansas football, but they were up against a good West Virginia offense and a Heisman candidate in Will Grier. Yet Daniel Wise, Hasan Defense and company made him look like Rutgers freshman Arthur Sitkowski for the first three quarters, forcing three interceptions in the red zone and forcing a fumble as well. They did everything they could to keep the Jayhawks in this one right up until the end.
In fact, the Jayhawks have forced 18(!!) turnovers through six games, including 11(!!) interceptions. That’s good enough to be ranked #1(!!) in turnovers gained in the FBS. Hear that? Kansas is ranked #1 in the FBS in something that isn’t Tom Fornelli’s Bottom 25.
So What’s Next?
Kansas has a bye this upcoming weekend for Fall Break and then travel to Lubbock to take on Texas Tech after that. The outlook isn’t necessarily good when it comes to victories, but this was somehow the best we’ve seen David Beaty in the aggressiveness column in all four years in Lawrence. Hooray for moral victories!
At Least Football Isn’t the ONLY Fall Sport
It’s not? Yup! Big shoutout to the Jayhawks volleyball team for an incredible comeback in Horejsi Family Athletics Center against West Virginia on Wednesday night. At least one Kansas team can beat the Mountaineers.
After dropping the first two sets of the match, a comeback in the third, a beatdown in the fourth and a quick finish in the fifth finished off an exciting night in Lawrence, which included this MVP play from captain and junior Allie Nelson:
And thank you to my friend and radio voice of Jayhawk volleyball Jackson Schneider for the line of the century…
