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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 3, 2016

David Beaty

Lawrence, Kansas

Rhode Island - 6, Kansas - 55

COACH BEATY: Congratulations to all the Jay Hawk fans out there. You know, it's hard to win a college football game. I don't care who you're playing. I take my hat off to Coach Flemming and what they're trying to build there. We're in the same spot; we really are. He's fighting with a different type of tool than what we have here. So, I know they're going to get there. He's a quality and class man. And I know they're going to get there.

THE MODERATOR: I didn't have my ear against the floor with a glass or anything, but you could hear the kids downstairs coming into the locker room. Can you describe the feel these guys had coming in with smiles on their faces, finally?

COACH BEATY: Yeah, it was great to see it and they've been through a lot. And we've asked them to do a lot. And they've done everything we've asked them to do. When you put yourself through the things that they put themselves through, just like all the other student athletes do throughout the country, you've got to feel some success.

It's a first step, and it's our first win. And you know, in my time here, but man there's been so many victories that we've shared leading up to this. It's just the first time it came to fruition on the score board.

THE MODERATOR: What are some things you take away from this? I want to ask you about the offense, first off. Obviously played a bunch of quarterbacks, but the two that played primarily, Montell and Ryan Willis both played awfully well in leading your offense.

COACH BEATY: Yeah, I think they did. It just solidified for us what we saw through fall camp. I think I said it publicly that both of those guys played really well in our system. What we do, there's a lot of freedom to really kind of go with what they see. And I thought those guys had good eyes.

Carter played well when we got in there. Perry came in and did exactly what we told him to do, which is great. But, you know, I take my hat off to the defense. They created turnovers for us. Joe DeForest did a great job on special teams. They created a turnover early that made a big difference in the ball game.

You know, but there's a lot of things that we can go to school on. Substitution errors, that's not acceptable. We've got to get that cleared up. That's on us as coaches. We get that cleared up going into next week.

You hate seeing those things in the first ball game because they're preventable. But they happen all the time, and they're preventable. And so that's the only thing I come away with that I'm disappointed in.

THE MODERATOR: You told us that we'd see a lot of new faces. You got a chance to play a bunch of true freshmen. How big is that for you?

COACH BEATY: I think it's big. There's no substitute for experience. I look up out there and I see Bryce Torneden playing a bunch. I see Kyle Mayberry playing a bunch out there late. I see Isaiah rushing off the edge and being hard to tackle and hard to block and guys getting some pass rush on those guys for us.

Seeing all the guys play, the young guys, it's good to see that happen. You know, something that I thought was really good was seeing Steven Sims actually use the speed he has. We knew he had that. Just seeing him turn that third gear on was pretty slick.

THE MODERATOR: It's always back to work really quick. Do you allow yourself to celebrate at all?

COACH BEATY: Oh, absolutely. We're going to celebrate. Winning a college football game is tough. It's difficult. It doesn't matter who we are. We're not going to let anybody steal our joy. And we won, and we're going to enjoy that, but we get back to work for a really good Ohio football team coming in there next week.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on the win.

COACH BEATY: Thanks a lot. Rock chalk.

THE MODERATOR: All right guys, that's David Beaty. Guys, back to you.

COACH BEATY: Rock chalk! You dang right I'm happy. Getting the win is a neat deal. And I'm happiest, probably for our players. Those guys, they deserve that. They've been through a lot. We've asked them to do a lot. And man, that's good for them to experience that success.

Really, really cool experience in the locker room. And to see them have the heart they had for Shanda and Cole down there was pretty cool. That was pretty dang neat.

Q. Why didn't they douse you tonight?
COACH BEATY: They know better. We expect to win around here. We have to learn how to do that. And tonight, probably the thing we learned the most is how to play with a lead.

We learned a lot of things that we haven't had before. To play with a lead and play with those situations and be able to play situational football when you're in that situation. That sounds easy, but, you know, there was some missed cues late that are -- you know, those are disappointing, because we talk about those things, and we hit those things.

To have a ball, you know, fumbled on the punt at the very end there. That should never happen. That should have been a Peter call, and we've got to communicate better. The kid will get better because they learn from it.

We haven't been in those situations yet. So there's a lot of things that we can learn from this game.

Q. ( Question asked off mic about point spread )
COACH BEATY: They knew what was going on when they went into the game, so they were prepared for it. I do think that it helped us, because we had an advantage, and I wasn't going to give it back, and the kids didn't want to give it back.

If it wasn't evident tonight, they're very different types of quarterbacks. That was something that we wanted to keep. I thought they handled the rotation very well. And they were for one another. That was the thing I wanted to see the most, to see how close and tight knit that room was. And man, it was really cool to see Ryan root for Montell when he went in there first. And to see Montell do the same thing for Ryan. Watching those guys smile on that sideline was a lot of fun.

Q. What kind of a springboard does a season-opening win provide?
COACH BEATY: It's huge. You know, we always say this in this room here, a great start makes for a great finish. You've got to get started somewhere. And starting off with a win, half the teams in the country won't do that and half the teams will. That makes the next week, you know, more challenging and difficult.

I think the challenge for us now is that we can learn -- you learn a lot of stuff when you don't come out victorious. And there's a lot of things that tend to get covered up when you wind up winning, and we've got to challenge ourselves to make sure we -- we've got a lot of things that we can get better at. We're nowhere near where we need to be, and we know that.

But I was pleased with what they did tonight. I'm sure I'm going to look at the tape. It's never has good as you think it is or as bad as you think it is.

Q. ( Question asked off mic about six touchdown passes and versatility at receiver )
COACH BEATY: We have good players, and I look at the huddle, and I look at the guys in the second group, and I'm like, Okay. That's what depth looks like. And there's three or four more over there, that if they would have been able to get in the game, I'm like, Okay. All right. You know?

And you know, not just there, but up front. I mean, we've got two really young, baby tackles that played in there today that are very talented guys. I'll be interested to see how they played on tape. Watching Brad move over to center was good to see. We had guys moving around all over the place.

That true freshman, Adeniji, played right tackle and left tackle tonight. I've enjoyed watching that guy develop. And I'll tell you this, I didn't feel his size being a problem at all. We'll see. I'm sure he's got lots of stuff he can get better at. But I like that kid and not just because he's from Garland.

Q. Where do you see the rotation going from here as far as next week?
COACH BEATY: We'll go back and we'll look at the tape and we'll see who handled the minute details the best. Both of them performed at a very high level, you know? And it's one of the deals where we still have competition going.

We're trying to win the Big 12, and for us to be able to do that, we've got to take one game at a time. And right now, until one guy completely separates himself, you know, we'll continue to rotate quarterbacks if we need to. You know?

Q. How long would you be able to wait? Could it be an all-season thing, if it played out that way?
COACH BEATY: I don't know, to be honest with you. We're not trying to look that far down the road. I know this: The majority of the teams in the Big 12 last year needed a second quarterback.

And right now, just seeing those guys play tonight, there's -- you know, all three of those guys handled the procedure really, really well. And you know, we've got a long way to go. We didn't have a lot of pressure on us tonight, so it will be interesting to see how they handle pressure and blitz. We didn't see a lot of that tonight.

Q. Right there at the end of the first half, back-to-back time-outs followed by a penalty that made the field goal attempt tougher?
COACH BEATY: The teaching lesson is just attention to detail with everybody within our program. I'm talking about coaches, players, myself. We're all accountable for that. You know? That's a coach's nightmare. When I look up out there and we've got 12 guys coming out of the time-out, I'm sure our fans were extremely upset, and I was, too. That can't happen. That is inexcusable. And we have a plan in place, and the plan failed us, and we've got to go back and really work at those details and make sure it doesn't happen again.

I would rather it happen in a win than a loss, but we already know that. We already know how it works, and that's what's disappointing to me. We did do a lot of things that the plan did work, that handled certain situations. So, you've got to take it a little bit with a grain of salt as you go, but you've got to go with it.

Q. Do they have expectations now that they're going to be a lot better than they were last year? Do you feel they were able to prove that a little bit tonight?
COACH BEATY: I do. I know the look in the eye of those guys on the side over there. I just saw how our guys looked at the offensive line tonight and how the offensive linemen looked in the huddle. That was a really big difference for me.

The other thing is they didn't get in our red zone any. They scored on one, they were outside the red zone. They were 0 of 0 in red zone attempts, and we were 6 of 8. That was something we put a lot of stress on. Third down, we were 6 of 11 and they were 4 for 15. That was a major area we had to improve on from last year. That's a nice start. We should have been better than that on offense, but we weren't. It was good to see our new punters come in and do a good job of flipping the field for us. You know, total offense, I thought we did a pretty decent job and we had high expectations to put a lot of offense up. The two turnovers, both could have been prevented.

Q. ( Question asked off mic about quarterback )
COACH BEATY: Primarily. The system is taught the same. Late in the game there, you know, I'm so happy for carter Stanley. You've heard me talk about this guy. I love this guy. He is gamer. He's got an intensity about him. I love watching him go down there and score. If we get heavy boxes and you're going to heavy box and blitz us, our offense says to do certain things. He just was doing what our offense says to do. We had a long talk about being situationally aware. Because we've been in that situation before, too. I'm disappointed in that, but as a coach, he's a young quarter back and I've got to teach him. But I'm still happy for him because his training took over. Heavy box, press man, let's go. And that's what he did. He executed and chase did a great job getting his touch down.

Q. What did you think of the fans rushing the field?
COACH BEATY: I didn't know what to think of it, Jesse, when I first saw them, because I wasn't sure where they were going, but man, it made my heart proud to see where they went. They didn't go over to the goal posts. We got to have higher standards here. Would never rush that court at Allen Fieldhouse. Other places do that but we don't. We don't need to do that here. We need to do exactly what they did. Our students were phenomenal tonight. I mean, we felt them. We saw them. Our crowd was outstanding.

And you know what? It's a lot of fun for them when they get to see some things that are positive going on out there. As much as I'm happy for our kids, I'm happy for our fans. They deserve it. They've been through a lot.

Q. Coach, after so much adversity last year, what's this mean to you? Just winning a football game?
COACH BEATY: I've never been through what we went through last year. That's hard. That's very -- personally, it's difficult. I got emotional with those guys. It's just hard. So, obviously, I'm overjoyed for them. Sorry. We don't want to wait. We want to win. But I was proud of those guys. And you know, for me, more than anything, we can't make too much of it. It's just one game. I know that you can't argue and you can't throw away the fact of what we had coming into this game. And I get that. But, you know, there's going to be a lot made about the situation from people, and hey, we don't listen to the noise. We just try to focus on getting better ourself. And we will.

We've good a really good football team coming in here next week and we got to get ready. He is one of my coaching heroes, and I'm about to coach against him. I never thought I would be coaching against Frank Solich, to be honest with you. We've got to get ourselves ready to go because they win and they win a lot. So we better get ready to go. And our guys understand that.

Q. A punt in our offensive possession? Punt on fourth and one to keep the drive alive. Did everybody loosen up after the key plays?
COACH BEATY: I think so. I think that jump started us. That turnover on a punt was a big, big play. Our guys did a good job of being down there and they were there to pounce on the fumble when it took place.

I said a long time ago, there's a lot more games lost than won. The mistake we made late really kind of nullified the mistake that they made early, and we can't have that happen. We're better than that. I know Coach Fleming feels the same way. We're better than that. We just didn't do a good job there. And I know they'll get better moving on, too.

Q. How have you seen Ryan and Montell and their relationship grow?
COACH BEATY: You know that whole room is great. That room is outstanding. We're not going to make it about Ryan and Montell because it's not. It's about Ryan, Montell, Carter, Keaton. It's about Tyriek. Those guys are very close knit, and they know if you're going to play in this offense with us, you've got to be for one another. And I watch for anything that tells me something different. If you're not, you don't have to leave, you just can't stay here. You're not going to be with us. You've got to be for one another.

Every one of them are going to get their opportunity. And they know when their time comes, it's going to be a by-product of their hard work.

It was good to see Ryan handle himself so well, because he did not know until this afternoon that he was not starting. And it was just another learning piece for him as well as Montell. I mean I saw Montell just -- his eyes welled up when he looked over at Ryan. You know, and both those guys kind of hugged and shared some pleasantries, but it was good to see those guys be for one another.

Last one.

Q. When did Montell find out?
COACH BEATY: The same time, right there at the same time. We just told them both to be ready. Thanks guys. Appreciate y'all. Love that y'all got to witness something funner.

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