Bob Lutz: Hard-charging Beaty runs into a brick wall in KU’s one-sided loss to Memphis

LAWRENCE – David Beaty has enthusiasm and so does his football team.

The Kansas Jayhawks were a riled-up bunch before Saturday evening’s game against Memphis at Memorial Stadium. And they started quickly, jumping up 10-0. For a moment, Kansas football fans could close their eyes and imagine being swept away by a surprise.

But reality has a way of crashing dreams. It’s too soon for Kansas to pull off a surprise of magnitude. Memphis, a 13-point favorite, stormed back, kept storming, and beat the Jayhawks 55-23. And by the fourth quarter, the stadium looked the way it has late in games for years now – desolate.

There was a different energy early, though, than there has been in a few years. That’s not saying much, of course, considering Turner Gill and Charlie Weis could let the air out of a Donald Trump rally. Hey, there’s a way to slow Trump’s Republican momentum – send Gill and Weis to a rally.

That’s another way of saying Gill and Weis are not tough acts to follow, nor is the 11-41 record they accumulated at Kansas. So Beaty’s foot-stomping, fast-paced style is a welcome change. It’s not excruciating to watch the Jayhawks so far in 2015 and I mean that as a compliment.

OK, maybe it’s excruciating to watch the KU defense, void of playmakers and missing linebacker Ben Heeney the way a duck hunter misses a retriever. Heeney covered up a lot of mistakes and, because of KU’s losing ways, will probably never get the credit he deserves for an outstanding career.

Losses have a way of weighing players, coaches and teams down. Heeney was never pulled under, though.

It will be interesting to see how this Kansas team and its gung-ho coach handle and manage the week-to-week difficulty – and that’s putting it mildly – the Jayhawks are sure to endure.

Beaty is force-feeding junior quarterback Montell Cozart with a speed-up, spread offense that Cozart isn’t ready for. He runs the football OK, but struggles to throw downfield, a rather important part of a spread. Cozart was the starter to begin 2014, too, before interim coach Clint Bowen, who replaced Weis after four games, switched to veteran Michael Cummings.

Cummings was a life raft who was unable to get the Jayhawks to shore, but he was a better quarterback than Cozart. Cummings, though, suffered a season-ending knee injury in KU’s spring game. He’s not an option.

Already, some KU folks are screaming for freshman Ryan Willis, like Cozart a product of Bishop Miege, to come to the rescue. So far, Beaty is sticking with Cozart, who sparked a comeback against South Dakota State in Week 1 that came up three points short and looked just OK against Memphis.

Just OK is about all the Jayhawks can hope for this season. Just OK might eke out a win or two. What Kansas needs to avoid is awful, brutal, terrible, deflating, painful and sickening performances.

The 6-foot-4 Willis, who passed for 3,003 yards and 35 touchdowns at Miege last season, was thought to be a redshirt candidate this season until he appeared for two plays last week against South Dakota State. By all accounts, he had an outstanding summer with the Jayhawks and it wouldn’t shock anyone to see him more in the mix.

But when Saturday’s game got out of hand, junior-college transfer Deondre Ford replaced Cozart at quarterback.

While Beaty said he trusts Cozart and the quarterback job is still his, if I were Cozart, I would rent.

“No one is entrenched in any position,” Beaty said, pointing out that freshman right tackle Larry Hughes beat out senior Larry Mazyck for the starting position last week. “Montell is still our starter and we’ll go back and look at the tape and evaluate that. If a guy continues to improve and get better… if they beat out a guy, then they’re going to take that job until the other guy steps back up and takes it back.

“We want those guys to have confidence, but they still have to compete. I love Montell and I know he wants to do well. He didn’t have his best game tonight but I know he’ll come back and do better.”

In junior Ke’aun Kinner, a junior-college transfer from Navarro (Texas), KU has an exciting tailback. At only 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, Kinner relies on speed, not power. He had 113 yards against Memphis and has 270 through two games.

Elsewhere, there was… not much.

Memphis, coming a 10-3 season in 2014, has won nine straight and rolled up 651 yards against Kansas. The Tigers’ coach, Justin Fuente, took over in 2012 after three seasons as co-offensive coordinator at TCU. Memphis was 4-8 in his first season, 3-9 in his second. Then the Tigers started to rustle. They beat BYU in the Miami Beach Bowl last December and have topped 30 points in eight of their past nine games.

Memphis’ 6-7, 245-pound quarterback, Paxton Lynch, picked KU apart, completing 22 of 25 pass attempts for 354 yards.

Kansas would love a similar resurrection. And Beaty would love to find a quarterback like Lynch. Know of any?

Beaty, the wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator at Texas A&M the previous two seasons, is getting his first shot as a college head coach. His inexperience fits perfectly with these Jayhawks. Maybe they’ll grow together. Or perhaps they will wilt.

Two games is not even a first chapter for Beaty, whose first season should be held in a classroom and not a stadium. But that’s not how it works. KU’s problems are on public display. Beaty’s challenge is to fix them and no one should be in a hurry.

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 10:31 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Hard-charging Beaty runs into a brick wall in KU’s one-sided loss to Memphis."