K-State’s Cooper Beebe was almost a Jayhawk ... until a KU coach told him to stay away
Cooper Beebe is on pace to become a four-year starter on Kansas State’s offensive line, but there was a time when he strongly considered playing for the rival Kansas Jayhawks instead.
Chances were good he would have ended up wearing blue instead purple if not for a bizarre warning he received about the KU football program ...
From a KU assistant coach.
“I was a KU fan when I was growing up,” Beebe said Tuesday during K-State’s weekly media availability, “and on one of my visits — I’m not going to say the coach’s name, he’s not there (anymore) — but he actually told me not to go there. So that was one my deciding factors not to go there.”
You don’t hear that every day.
Beebe, a 6-foot-3 and 320-pound left tackle, laughed as he recalled the story and confirmed the details on follow-up questions about the incident. No, he didn’t misspeak.
Yes, that really happened.
Back then, Beebe was a two-star recruit in the 2019 class with scholarship offers from KU, K-State and Minnesota coming out of Piper High School. His college choice wasn’t easy, but he ended up committing to the Wildcats in April of 2018 ahead of Bill Snyder’s final season as coach.
That timeline means that Beebe’s strange interaction with a KU football assistant came during the spring before David Beaty’s final season in Lawrence. Beebe primarily played defensive tackle in high school before moving to offense in college, so KU coaches on both sides of the ball could have recruited him.
Former defensive line coach Mo Latimore was his primary recruiter at K-State. Beebe has started all eight games for the Wildcats at left tackle this season under Chris Klieman.
The year 2018 was a difficult time for the Jayhawks to land football recruits, with or without “stay away” warnings from their assistants. It was obvious that Beaty was a lame-duck coach, and KU only picked up one commitment before Beaty was fired and replaced by Les Miles that December.
Miles was gone two seasons later and replaced by Lance Leipold.
That wasn’t a surprise for K-State defensive end Nate Matlack, who also chose the Wildcats over the Jayhawks.
“They offered me pretty soon after K-State,” Matlack said, “but that was with Les Miles, and he’s kind of crazy.”
Perhaps stories like that will add some extra juice to this week’s Sunflower Showdown, which has been incredibly one-sided since 2009 with K-State winning 12 straight games in the series.