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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 28, 2015David BeatyLawrence, Kansas Kansas State - 45, Kansas - 14 Q. First portion of this game, special teams got some real trouble, and it was a tough start to this one being a special team? COACH BEATY: It really was, it was two weeks in a row we didn't start off very strong. One area we've been pretty good in is special teams throughout the year, to be honest with you. And that was something that hadn't showed up, but it showed up today. We said coming into this game, control the controllables. We talked about being the smartest team on the field. We had more penalties than they did. We had 6 for 15 and they had 1 for 5. We talked about dominating special teams, we obviously didn't do that. We also talked about turnover margin. That was a wash. It was 1 for 1. It's one of those deals when you play a team like that they're not going to beat themselves, so you certainly can't yourself and expect to stay in the game. Q. I know you can't erase those, but with the football, your defense kind of stiffened up and did things especially in the second half to keep the margin? A. Yeah, we did. I really thought our defensive staff did a really nice job of making some adjustments after the onslaught early. And that was something that I was proud of them for. One of the other things that stood out to me, we talked in the huddle several times about getting the turnover in the fourth quarter. And we were able to get one. We continue to harp about, continue to play, continue to grow as a team. That's a positive there. Those guys did some good things to try to make some adjustments. Q. You talked about the seniors and what they meant to this season. What do you tell those guys after this one? A. Well, you know, obviously we talked to them about what they meant to this program. We made sure that everyone in that locker room got to say good-bye properly tonight before they walked out of this room. That's why I was late getting down here. Those guys mean the world to us, they helped us set a foundation, and they're always going to be welcome here. Q. You're going to have plenty of time to discuss messages going forward. You had a bunch of first time players and freshman, which kind of took some lumps, but had some things to build on. What kind of message do you give them heading into the off season? A. We have to continue developing. We've got to continue recruiting. Continue to getting better in our craft, and we've got to learn a lot of lessons we had to go through this year, that we can't afford to pop up here in the future. We don't have any excuse, being young is not an excuse. When we're prepared for those things and we still allow them to happen, those are things you have to learn from. Some people call it young, I call it just not paying close enough attention. We have to do a better job of paying close enough attention and executing and trusting what you have to do to execute. Q. Did anything surprise you? This is your first go around as a head coach. What can you take out of this season personally? COACH BEATY: I think if one thing surprised me, it was the work by the seniors to rally our core of young players, keeping them together, and keeping them fighting through the entire season. We were going to face some tough times this year. We kind of knew that getting into it. Those guys did a really, really nice job of staying positive. And that's not always the case when you take over a program. Sometimes they can hurt you. But they were nothing but help. Coach Snyder and his group, they did a nice job tonight staying in contention for a bowl. I thought they ran the football really, really well. Led us tonight. They obviously excelled in special teams. They created had some points for their team, that I thought really took some momentum away from the game early. A signature type win for him. I thought they did a nice job. Special teams they kind of made that game go a little bit out of hand pretty early, because of some of the things that happened there. He does a great job. I think I've said it before, how impressed I am with him and his teams, how well coached they are. We've got to be better coached than we are, and we've got to start playing better than what we showed tonight. But we'll get better. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH BEATY: Yes, I think it absolutely affected you. Now, we had a lot of football left to go. When you're a young football team you have to understand when something happens early, it can't be something that leads to something else. You've got to be able to stop the bleeding right there. We had a lot of football left to go. That's not an excuse, but realistically, did it? Absolutely. I think it played a big role in that game early. Q. You talked about the foundation of the players, especially the seniors stepping up. Do you feel like you've set a foundation now to move forward from here? COACH BEATY: Yeah, I think we have. I know there's certainly a lot we're going to learn from in this season. Our fans deserve better results than what we gave them this year. Our seniors deserve better results. Our team deserves better results than what we were able to give them this year. We learned a lot and we're going to continue to learn from this season. And we have to steps forward quickly here as we move through in my tenure here. We've got to get better than what we were. We've got a lot of things that we can go to school on which will help us moving forward. Our seniors did a nice job of bringing a bunch of young guys together and keeping them playing. Seems like it's an easy task at times and it was not. It was a hard deal, and they did a great job. Q. You talked about it all year, forget the record, we've got another game. What is the psychology of going down in the record book? Do you worry about that and how do you handle in the next several months? COACH BEATY: I'm certainly not proud of it. It is -- yes, it isn't something you think about. But we don't have time to dwell on it. It is what it is. We had our opportunities. We had 12 opportunities to go out there and put a team on the field that could win the game. We had plenty in that locker room to get it done. And for whatever reason we weren't able to coach them good enough or maybe they weren't able to play good enough. We're going to keep working until we get it right. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH BEATY: You know, for me, when I came here, the way that we thought we could get better faster was through three areas, and we talked about it tonight and we talked about it every day. We said if we could be the smartest team in the conference or hover in the top quarter of the conference by not giving our opponents yards or by going backwards. So being penalty free. We said if we did that, that would help us get better faster. We said if we led the conference in turn over margin, it would help us get better a lot faster. And then finally if we can dominate special teams, we would get better a lot faster. We actually did some of those things good at times. But I still believer those three areas are going to help us get moving forward quicker, if we continue to learn from the things that we went through. We have to be better offensively. We're going to have to continue to recruit, continue to develop and we've got to continue to develop our teams and what we think we can do with the guys that we have. Getting better comes down to the same thing we talked about, being the smartest team, value in possession, and winning the hidden third of the games, which is special teams. They played a big role in tonight's game. You take those two punts away, and really a couple of poor punts that happened after that, that right there had a huge impact on this football game. Huge. Not only did it have a huge impact on where they took possession and what happened with scores, but it affected us mentally. We can't let it affect us, but you're dealing with humans. So when you have that kind of an issue, it's hard to deal with sometimes. We've got to prevent it. We haven't had a punt blocked aller use. That's disappointing at the end of the year with the punt being blocked in a game, as much time as we put into it. That might be one of the most disappointing things that I've experienced as a coach this year. I know our staff feels the same way and the kids do, as well. I don't think I saw that one coming. Q. You were teaching and stressing those things, too, in terms of getting more consistency in the performances? COACH BEATY: Absolutely, literally we talk about those things every day. As we're teaching and as we're going through practice, there's a lot of charting that's going on. There's things that emphasize, basically, those points. And you've just got to keep doing it. I think some of the things that you don't think about that go into it, is we still have a bunch of guys trying to figure out what to do. Sometimes when you're trying to figure out what to do, it's hard to think past that. And sometimes that will affect you. And we've got to be able to get to a point where we're developed well enough where we can start figuring out how to do it and what our opponent is doing to us, so we can start thinking beyond just what am I go doing out here. Q. How will this season and the results of this season motivate you? COACH BEATY: Well, it will motivate me, obviously, because our university deserves better than a 0-12 record. So from that standpoint it's embarrassing to me personally, and I think it's embarrassing to KU, our university. They deserve better than that. We're going to work our tail off every day, knowing that they deserve better. And we can't do much about what's behind us, but we can certainly do something about what's in front of us. And that motivation is plenty there. We have a lot to learn from. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH BEATY: Well, I think the lasting message was basically based on our seniors and their leadership that they provided us throughout the season. It's a difficult season when you go through a winless season. And there's points in it where the team was kind of teetering one way or another. Our team never really did that. It was amazing. Our seniors did such a good job of managing it, that it never gotten remotely close to that point. I was absolutely amazed, to be honest with you. I've been a part of some tough seasons, and I've seen it teeter, and it takes some real leadership to get it done. I believe our seniors really did a nice be job. We're going to miss those guys for their leadership as much as anything. That was big. We wanted to make sure we paid tribute to those guys. And the other thing is that the way we can pay tribute to them, and we talked about this, is by improving and giving them something better to talk about at the water cooler or with the team that they're playing with next. They deserve better and we're going to take those steps. I understand what happened this year. I know where our season is. But I'm not discouraged. I'm excited about moving forward. It's going to be a great, great 2016. I'm fired up about it. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH BEATY: You know, you start getting into a point where you have to start thinking about that, what is causing that. And I don't know that there's really any excuse, to be honest with you. There's a lot of people that talk about the youth that we have on our football team. But those youthful guys get spoken to just like the older guys do. They get told the same things. We've got to keep talking to them until they get it. Usually it's a mistake here and a mistake there, and it's not always the same guy. Trying to be consistent across the board is crucial. We're going to get these things done by developing the guys we currently have. And we've got to get out and recruit. We have to elevate the level of the talent we have in our program, that will help us mentally. It will help us in a lot of ways, we'll have more talented player out there, but we'll also have better competition within the ranks than we currently have, which will make those guys better. It will make those guys play better than what they're playing right now. That's where we've got to go. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH BEATY: Tomorrow we'll have a little banquet with our seniors, and we'll let those guys kind of go off in the right way. And then Monday I'll meet with the team before I hit the road recruiting. And Coach Jackson will have them right after that. We go to work right now. I'm excited about that. Q. Most plaers develop slowly over the course of four or five years, that some of the young players, how much better can you really get in one year? COACH BEATY: Well, I think you know what, I don't know that you can really worry too much about that. You've got to look at the fact that you've got to get a little better before you can get a lot better. That's yet to be seen. I know that there's a lot of teams out there that do it. Coach Snyder is one of those guys that does it. I really think that there's a lot of teams out there that play with guys that are not maybe as talented as some other teams, but they finally get it. I think one thing that will help our team is when we are able to surround a couple of young players with a lot of older players. That's easier to do that, when you have a guy that has 24, 48 games under his belt than it is nine or eight or seven guys out there that have played in six or seven games. Those guys are just trying to figure out what the heck they do. And they can't help at all. But when you've got eight or nine guys out there that know what they're doing, and you've got one guy that's played six games, well now you've got some help over there. Little things that the young guys, they just don't trust it. They're not going to show a different coverage sometimes when they're young, because they're worried about executing the base look. Those are some of the things that we went through this year. And it is what it is. Those are things that I can't deny, either. There's a lot of youth and a lot of youthful mistakes. But you know me. We're not going to make any excuses, just continue to move forward. I am more sure than ever that we will get this thing done. I know that's hard to believe and hard to swallow after a result like this against an opponent that have meant so much to the people of this state, particularly the Jayhawks, but we'll continue working. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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