Sooners vs. Jayhawks | Beaty - "Our Goal Is To Win For Our Fans"

Kansas Head Coach David Beaty is in a tough spot. He's got a young team that's sitting at 0-7 and his talent depth is really challenged due to injuries and other circumstances. Yet somehow he's got to figure out an effective way to bring his guys out and play against #14 Oklahoma on homecoming weekend. He doesn't just want to compete though. In the true spirit of "never say die competition," Beaty wants his guys to believe that they can win.

"You talk to your team about staying focused and your job is to win the game for homecoming," Beaty said about homecoming. "That's what your job is to do. We're going to stay focused and our goal is to go win the football game for our fans, and for our exes and all the people that love KU. So our focus is making sure we take care of our job. We're the entertainment for them that week, and we have to give them what they need, which is to go win the game."

A football coach has to be able to sell. He's got to sell his program to recruits and he's got to sell confidence to his players. Of course he's not going to take the podium and question whether his team can play with Oklahoma. He's knows it's a challenge and he's excited to see his team step up to it. If he wasn't then he should have never even left his office to come a meet with the media. Any team can win on any given day, right?

"They do a great job recruiting, great job evaluating and those suckers play hard, man. They're one of the better teams I've seen on tape. They've done a really nice job. It will definitely be a challenge, but it's one that we're certainly looking forward to our homecoming this week."

When it comes to the Sooners themselves, Beaty pretty much described the team that we all hope they can become some day. He didn't cover the entire coaching staff with complements but he came pretty dang close.

Coach Stoops and those guys are coming in here this week, and they're riding a couple game winning streak. Man, those guys are 6-1, and unbelievably coached team. He does an unbelievable job, as you guys know. They look like a big, strong, well-coached football team just like they always do at OU. They run the ball extremely well.

Lincoln Riley is their new offensive coordinator, and he does a great job of bringing a run game in there that they can hang their hat on.

Bill Bedenbaugh is an offensive line coach. And those young offensive linemen don't play like young offensive linemen. They're really good. You would not know that is a set of five new guys. There are a bunch of new guys playing up there, and boy, he does a great job. He really does. They rushed for 400-plus yards last week, and I think Samajie rushed for 207 with three touchdowns, and then Joe Mixon, that's a pretty good combination in the back field. Those guys are good. They're talented.

They put a couple other backs in the game that are pretty good players. That's Coach Stoops and Coach Gundy, he's always going to have a few running backs there. So they've done a good job of amassing talent.

The thing that people I don't think are talking about enough is the job that Mike Stoops has done defensively. He's got them in the top of the league in just about every statistical category including total defense, pass defense, pass defense efficiency. I mean, the list goes on and on. Turnovers, interceptions. They are an up field, attacking style defense. He did it a long time ago and was very successful. He's got himself back there doing the same thing.

It's always a great challenge, but it's always a great opportunity to go against such good football minds like those guys have over there.

Samaje Perine had the game of his life against Kansas last season and that's something that isn't lost on Beaty and his team as this game approaches. However, he also knows that Perine isn't the only guy his Jayhawk defense has to watch out for on Saturday.

Samajie had a big effort against us last year, so we obviously have some things that we've really got to do to prepare for that guy. Listen, he's talented. He is really good. He is a good back. He's as good a back as I've seen all year. I think he and Leonard Fournette are two of the best guys I've seen in a long time. He's got great vision, great strength, great speed, great explosion. Did I say great speed? The guy can run. I mean, this guy's a good player. He is a really good player.

Joe Mixon's a good player. They are really good football players, and those guys up front give them holes to run through and it makes it even tougher to stop them. They're good, man. He does a really good job. I hear nothing but great things about that kid, which is good to hear when you hear about a kid being that good of a player.

I like David Beaty! There aren't a whole lot of guys who would want to pick up the crumbled pieces that were left of the program like he did. There also aren't a whole lot of guys who could stay as upbeat and positive as he has while also taking a beating every weekend. He's got a tough road ahead of him but I'll be rooting for him to succeed...just not this coming Saturday.