Alright @HighEliteMajor, you wanted for why I think Tom Keegan is creating a false narrative about David Beaty so here it is. This is not about whether or Beaty should be retained or not because all the evidence says that he shouldn't have been, but I believe I know what the real logic in the situation is instead of what Zenger and Girod have said.
Realistically, I think Beaty is already a lame duck coach that was retained to finish getting the scholarship numbers back to an FBS level which is in the upper 70's to low 80's for most programs. I believe this was the class that put KU within reach of that goal and the next coach can finish the job. I also believe that with the way KU's schedule is set up next season, David Beaty has 6 games to prove himself for the remainder of the season. KU plays their first 6 games, has an off week, and then 6 more games to close out the season. If Beaty doesn't show something in those first 6 games, I believe he will get fired the day after game 6 (@West Virginia). I think it will take at least a 2-4 mark in those games and 4 wins overall to even be considered for year 5.
As for Keegan, it really boils down to two points that he's trying to drive home again and again in his crusade to get David Beaty fired which he claims should have happened after the 2016 season after only 2 years that I have a big issue with.
The first is the narrative that Keegan claims David Beaty is deliberately going after a high volume of JuCo recruits in an effort to win now at the expense of continuing to build a foundation of mostly HS recruits. On the surface, this doesn't sound bad because a look at KU's current class would certainly appear to reflect that position. 9 out of the 14 kids who sent in LOI's during the early signing period were JuCo kids.
Where Keegan's narrative falls flat on its face of accusing Beaty of employing the exact same recruiting strategy of Weis by deliberately loading up on JuCo players is a look at KU's recruiting class back in June. At that point, KU had 14 verbals I believe and at that point, 11 of those players were HS recruits. Does that sound like a coach setting out to take shortcuts? Once the HS players started decommitting, I believe Beaty was pretty much SOL on the HS recruits at that point because of the on field product which I suspect is a large reason many of the HS kids backed out of their KU verbals. At that point, Beaty was left with 3 options. The first option is to stick to your guns on HS recruits and start loading up on 2 star kids that would likely only have 1 P5 offer and that would be from Kansas. Option two would be to not replace those decommits at all because Beaty wants to primarily land HS kids worthy of P5 offers, but since they don't want KU for the most part, Beaty doesn't replace them. The third option, which is the one Beaty chose, was to find the best available players regardless of the HS or JuCo label and fill the class.
My point that I called Tom Keegan out about on his signing day article in which he blasted Beaty for copying the Weis philosophy was the David Beaty didn't go into the 2018 class with the goal of signing a JuCo heavy class. He did so out of desperation because of the decommitments and didn't want to end up with a 4 or 5 man class or a class loaded with 2 star kids.
It basically comes down to Keegan calling Beaty a liar for going back on his recruiting goals and me telling Keegan that Beaty went JuCo have because of necessity, not intent.
My second issue with Keegan is that he's tried on multiple times to compare KU's situation to that of UCF because each program went 0-12 in 2015. My call out of him was that the UCF rebuild that Scott Frost inherited had very little in common with the KU rebuild Beaty inherited because of each programs recent history.
KU has been a program in much turmoil for the better part of a decade now with Mangino, Gill, and Weis prior to Beaty. UCF was a very stable program with George O'Leary having been the coach at UCF for the previous decade at UCF. On field results prior to 2015 are where I have the biggest issues with the comparisons. In 2013 just 2 years prior to UCF's 0-12 season, they were 12-1 and beat Big 12 champs Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl. That was 5 seasons ago which means that UCF's redshirt seniors this year experienced a major bowl game as true freshmen. Even if they were redshirting that year, they still practiced and worked out and played a major role as the scout team that helped UCF win the Fiesta Bowl. KU's redshirt seniors this year experienced a 3-9 season in their true freshman season and that was their high point for wins.
In the past 9 years (when the Mangino situation occurred), UCF has won 4 C-USA/AAC titles and played for 5th. They've been to bowl games in 7 of the past 9 years. KU has won 19 games in the past 9 seasons, including Mangino's 5-7 mark in 2009.
My point to Keegan was this, the situations are not comparable because UCF's 0-12 season in 2015 was a blip on the radar while KU's 0-12 season was symbolic of the issues KU has had this decade because UCF has a long track record of success, even if it was/is in a lesser conference, while KU has been a historic doormat since WWII.
I know that's pretty long winded, but basically I believe Keegan is creating a false narrative to distorting reality to suit his agenda of over the top bashing of David Beaty by painting false picture of how the 2018 recruiting class has ended up where it is and by implying that turning around KU should have been just as easy as turning around UCF was. I know Beaty isn't the most open with the media, so I suspect Keegan's intense dislike of Beaty stems from this and I believe Keegan is abusing his position as a result.
