As first reported by JayhawkSlant and confirmed by a number of other outlets, Texas A&M wide receivers coach David Beaty will be the new head coach at Kansas.
Beaty is the name many coaches suggested to us back on November 2. "Beaty is extremely familiar with KU from his multiple prior stints there and knows the recruiting landscape in Texas, Kansas and Missouri about as well as anyone out there," we wrote at the time. "Several guys told me he’d be a no-brainer finalist if they were doing the hiring."
The respective departures of Nebraska and Missouri from the Big 12 create a void in the conference for mining underrated recruits out of Texas, and Beaty is the perfect coach to do just that. Kansas' best teams under Mark Mangino were led by Texans like Todd Reesing, Dezmon Briscoe and Aqib Talib, and Gary Pinkel built his Big 12 North champion Missouri-teams with Texas products like Chase Daniel, Sean Weatherspoon and Danario Alexander, among others. A former coach at several Metroplex high schools from 1994-2005, Beaty was named DFW area high school coaches' favorite recruiter in a recent survey.
Beaty broke into college football as the wide receivers coach and passing game on Todd Graham's staff at Rice in 2006, and spent time as a KU assistant in 2008-09 and 2011. Beaty spent the past three seasons as wide receivers coach at Texas A&M, and has been a finalist for our Wide Receivers Coach of the Year award for two years running.
In short, this is a move that makes a lot of sense for both sides. Kansas needs players and needs someone to rejuvenate its fan base after going 11-41 in five combined seasons under Turner Gill and Charlie Weis. Beaty, as they say, checks both boxes.
Beaty is the sixth coach to be hired in the 2014-15 coaching cycle, following Jim McElwain (Florida), Mike Riley (Nebraska), Chad Morris (SMU), Lance Leipold (Buffalo) and Neal Brown (Troy). Michigan, Oregon State, Colorado State, Tulsa and UNLV remain open at this time.
As always, check in at The Scoop for the latest.