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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 27, 2018

David Beaty

Lawrence, Kansas

TCU - 26, Kansas - 27

Q. First off, happy birthday.
DAVID BEATY: Great birthday present.

Q. There are many, many, many reasons why I don't coach, and the final seven seconds would epitomize that. What was the thinking in trying to run out the clock there and the decision that went into kind of getting that one down towards zero?
DAVID BEATY: Obviously, we knew there was going to be -- we thought there was going to be five seconds left on the clock. We felt we could get that off pretty safely with the call that we've already had built into what we do. We might have been able to kill that last second had we thrown the ball a little bit higher than what we did.

You know what, those kids executed exactly like we taught it, which gave us a chance there. And I thought Coach Perry had his guys ready to go to cover that onside there to where there was no real chance for them to pitch the ball back. They had to secure it and get down, and that's the way we were able to seal it.

Q. How were you able to change things offensively in the second half? Got that first drive to start the game, couldn't get much going. Then in the second half, I think you scored, except for the final possession, scored on every possession.
DAVID BEATY: They had made some adjustments, which, man, he is -- first of all, they did a terrific job. Either team could have won that game. He is a really good coach, man, and he did a really good job of mixing it up. He went to a little more pressure.

We came in and talked a little bit about what our plan was, and really just the plan handled it all, and we were just able to come in and just apply the plan and not necessarily have to get out of what we do. We went ahead in that second half and converted two key goals that we have. Number one, get a three and out. We were able to do that and get them off the field and nullify them getting the ball in the second half.

And the next thing was going in and scoring on that first drive. We haven't done that this year. That set the tone. Those two drives on both offense and defense set the phone for the rest of the game and gave us a chance.

Q. Peyton Bender, a lot more efficient today. I don't think as big a play as that run on third down where he goes for 11, ducks his head down, takes a hit, and gets the first down, that's as big a play as he'll have.
DAVID BEATY: Watching him, knowing what he was staring down the barrel of and just knowing that he knew he had to get it done and go get that first down, I couldn't be more proud of a kid. He's a guy that's taken a lot of criticism along the way, and there's a reason why we stick with him. We believe in him. We know he's got some real ability. He made as good a play as I've seen him make since he's been here when he scrambled and got the ball down there to Pooka for that touchdown in the third quarter.

I just can't say enough about him. I thought he did a terrific job of keeping us in the game and understanding the game plan.

Q. No turnovers for you. Two more big time forcing of turnovers today at key spots.
DAVID BEATY: I can't say enough how impressed I am with our defense, making them snap it again. When you make guys snap it again, there's a chance for something good to happen. We came up with the turnover there that, man, I was just so proud of our guys. They willed their way to get that done because it was looking like we were in a situation where we might have to go to school with no time left. I was about to start to have to burn time-outs to conserve time.

A lot of game management stuff there that we as a staff worked through that we have a plan for that the plan worked, and that's how it's supposed to be. There's not just a hulley gulley deal the way you work through that. We work through it the way we've always envisioned it and worked it ourself, and that paid off.

Q. Back to the offense again, third down efficiency today. You were able to convert on third downs, which were huge.
DAVID BEATY: Big deal. We said coming in, we needed to have 20 first downs in this game. I think we ended with 17 or 18 or something like that. We were 10 of 17 on third down, which that's night and day better. That comes from deliberate work, right? So deliberate work on third down. A lot of effort put in by our coaches in the plan in terms of how we wanted to be very specific about how we attacked them. That's one of the best third down teams in the league, if not the best.

So I take my hat off to our guys, but we've got to continue to improve there. We were 4 of 4 in the red zone, and they were 3 of 5. That's a big deal. Pooka, getting him some touches. He had 20 touches and 175 total yards, but he had 102 yards receiving. There's other ways to get the guy the rock when they're trying to shut him down some other ways. We've just got to continue to be creative enough to get it to him.

Q. Locker room is down a floor below us. I could hear a lot of loud noises coming. What was going on downstairs?
DAVID BEATY: Those guys were celebrating. We were going through our protocol of getting to that rock chalk camp. So many people in that locker room that are so special to us. We say it all the time. To be able to get in that locker room, you have to be somebody that stands in the rain. To see Dana Anderson, one of my best friends, Thomas Fritzel in there. Just seeing all the kids that belong to our staff.

We told -- we had Dirk Wedd's grandson in there. All he asked for was the ability to go into the locker room at the end of the game after we won, and it was so good to see him in there.

Q. Congratulations on the win.
DAVID BEATY: Thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it.

DAVID BEATY: First of all, what a great football game, and Gary and his staff, man, Gary's such a good football coach. I mean, I'm humbled to say that we were able to get a victory over those guys. We've had some great games with them over the last three, four years, and to be able to get over the hump, and it took everything. It took every second on the clock to get it done. It took everybody in our staff to get it done.

I think that's a tribute to him. He's such a good football coach, and he's got a good team there. They were dealt a little bit of a blow this week in losing some guys, and I thought they played very well. They certainly were there and could have easily won that game.

Our guys persevered. I'm extremely proud of them. Those guys deserve to have success, and I think the challenge for us moving forward is to make sure that we don't make this something that we're just surprised at, that we continue to move forward in a conference that's very strong, but I think we have plenty to be able to get it done. We've got to continue to improve in all areas.

There were a lot of improved areas that I thought we needed to work on. We needed to be very, very improved in third down efficiency. We were obviously better than that on offense. We weren't as good on defense, and we've got to do that. We had some chances to get them off on third down, and they made some big plays. We had to be better in the red zone. Capitalizing off turnovers, we had two again today. I think we had three points off of those. That's not good enough.

A couple things we did do that sticks out to me is a couple of our major goals are scoring or getting a three and out on the first drive of each half, and we did that in the second half. I think that set the tone for everything. Made a big difference.

Just a couple things right off the bat. I thought Peyton Bender played really, really well today. I'm proud of him. A lot of guys stood out. Pooka, finding ways to get him the ball, him being willing to do it. And just watching the other guys be selfless in terms of how they played today, it was good to see.

Our defense, can't say enough about those guys. Continuing to play, come up with two more turnovers. We didn't turn it over offensively. Played really pretty good in the special teams. We talked about it all week. That was going to be the difference in this game was special teams. I thought our coverage teams actually did a really nice job on a team that's very explosive. Even without Turpin, they've got some dudes that are really, really talented, and I thought our guys took that challenge well.

Q. Where does this rank as far as birthday presents in your life?
DAVID BEATY: Man, other than my kids and my wife, whatever they've ever done for me, that's obviously at the very top, it's pretty good. And my sweet mother. She's always been sweet too.

Q. Can you talk about the decisions you made at halftime, what you told them and how it kind of paid off in your favor?
DAVID BEATY: There's no question. Going into the halftime from that standpoint, I'm going to put that on us. We come out of halftime with the adjustments that we as a staff needed to make. What we did is we just sat back and took a look at the adjustments he made in the second quarter and realized that, hey, man, listen, it's all in the plan, so just stick with the plan.

Sometimes you've got to get away from it for a second to be able to understand that. I thought our staff did a good job of really maintaining poise and coming in here and talking about it and knowing that we had a chance if we just went back to staying along the plan.

It wasn't their fault. It wasn't Peyton's fault. It falls on me. We kind of got out of some of the things we were doing, and it really kind of played into their hands a little bit. Even though they were things that looked good on paper, they're pretty good at what they do. So we have to do what we do.

Q. You mentioned that Peyton just started a little tired that last second. There's one second left, and you squib it. If a TCU player just falls on the ball so the clock stops and starts at the same time almost, do they have time left to kick a field goal?
DAVID BEATY: I don't know. That's a good question. I will say this, we were fortunate because we weren't trying to kick it to the front line. We were trying to get it through. And it didn't get through, and our guys reacted well. So I was proud of them. We weren't trying to -- we weren't necessarily trying to onside there.

But our guys reacted well. They knew kind of the situation, and they knew that was a possibility because we talked about it.

Q. Looking at the final score, can you go back to that first -- that goal line defensive stand on fourth down and the way that your guys dug their heels in and refused to allow TCU in?
DAVID BEATY: I mean, those guys have done a great job, since I've been here, of really stiffening it on that goal line down there. They had gotten us when they got down close by pulling the ball and letting the quarterback run it. One time we had a guy misfit, and he wasn't there. The second time we were there, and we just didn't get him down. It would have been a field goal instead. We didn't get him down before he got into the end zone.

I'm not sure who came up with the turnover. Who calls it? Do you all know who calls it? Well, I'm glad he did. That worked out good.

Q. Bender, what made you decide to start him? Was that something that happened during practice, or did you know all along this is our quarterback and this is who's starting against TCU?
DAVID BEATY: We competed all week. Nothing changed our mind, even from last week. Nothing changed our mind. We knew this kid had a firm understanding of what we were doing and how our offense works together.

You know, I did say something last week. We will only get better from here. I think you saw a great improvement this week from him in terms of being able to understand even more about how the fitters were working and what he was supposed to do. I take my hat off to him because he takes an enormous amount of criticism, but that comes with the territory being at quarterback, just like being the head coach.

Q. Was there any nerves during the review of Pooka's touchdown?
DAVID BEATY: Yeah, quite a few. That's the deal that, obviously, our rule is that we don't ever reach the ball, that if we have to reach the ball, we usually put it in jeopardy, and usually that happens.

He's a young guy. He's a freshman. And as unbelievable as a player he is, he's human. Fortunately for us, it stood, and I don't know exactly where everything else went, but from that standpoint, that was a big play. He made a heck of a run. I thought he did some really nice things for us today, some things that maybe people won't see unless you were really watching the tape close. He did some really good things away from the ball.

Q. With him -- one benefit of him coming here is he can get on the field like that and maybe gain something. If you just think back to maybe recruiting him and maybe saying something like that to him, like you could be a program changer right away?
DAVID BEATY: We certainly knew that he had the ability to. What we didn't know is how cerebral he was and how much he loved the game, which those are the two things that really keep freshmen on the field. Are you smart? Are you willing to be committed and love the game? What loving the game translates into is staying up here whenever everybody's cut loose, and are you trying to figure out what we're doing so, when you get on the field, you're not a deficiency, you're an asset, right?

And that's the thing. He has -- he has had -- unless it was maybe a signal issue, he's had no bust, which is incredible for a young guy. He's done -- and we put a lot on him. We put a lot on him today. That's the thing we didn't know. I've seen a lot of good players, a lot of really good players that come in and, man, they hit that -- they hit the wall, man. They hit the wall after a couple weeks, and they hit the wall after the first road game is over. There's nothing else to look forward to. It's just hard.

Q. Obviously, with a guy like him, you want to get him the ball in space. But it's one thing to say that and one thing to do it. Today you guys did that. How did the plan for that come about? Are you in a meeting with the other offensive guys and you just brainstorm, or how does that come about?
DAVID BEATY: Absolutely. It's going to school on the information that you have of who people are structurally. You know, last week we had -- I thought we had a pretty good idea who he was. We just didn't execute it as well. One of the things that I saw Peyton do so well today is he threw the deep ball really, really well. We completed some key third downs to verticals when we knew we had isolated situations out wide, and we made an adjustment.

He's one of the most accurate guys I've ever been around in practice, and I know it's going to translate over to the game at some point. I think his confidence continues to grow.

Q. How important was Rui today? He had a couple big ones.
DAVID BEATY: I'll tell you what, it's not a big deal until it's a big deal. I say that all the time. What a great job he did. Really, he didn't leave a question. It didn't look like anything was even close to me. He did a really nice job. We needed him there to put us in situations, and he was able to come through for us.

He was as big a part of this win as anybody. Wirtel, as big a part of the win. His snaps, and then the hold back there were very, very big. Proud of our guys. I thought it was maybe one of our better collective efforts, and that's what you need to win.

Q. What does this mean to you, just the Big 12 picture. You didn't get one last year. You hadn't had one this year to this point.
DAVID BEATY: It means more to our kids and our fans. For me, as a coach, I don't get to live in that world. I get to live in the job at hand, right? There's emotions that are attached to the people you care about, particularly the players who have taken -- you know, they've taken some tough hits along the way that I'm not sure many kids can handle.

But I've said it before, the best thing about our team is the kids in that room, man. They are really good men. Really good men. I think they give you a chance. They keep coming back. They don't let the world beat them down. They're their own men. They think their own way.

For me, I'm more happy for our fans. I'm happy for those that have invested in our program. I'm happy for our AD, our administrations. Anybody that's a Jayhawk in any way, I'm happy for them. Ultimately, that's why we're here is to make the brand better and help people who love this thing be happy about it. Today we were able to do that. Appreciate you all. Have a good one.

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