Supporters of the University of Kansas had a chance to meet the Jayhawks new head football coach at a noon luncheon Thursday at Smoky Hill Country Club. David Beaty was hired in early December to try and rebuild the struggling program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2008. “For us to be able to do what we want to do we have to be able to earn peoples support one person at a time, one fan at a time, one coach at a time, one player at a time” Beaty said.

The Jayhawks signed 17 high school seniors out of the state of Texas in his first recruiting class but the Garland, Texas native says Kansas – including the western half of the state, it always going to be a priority “It’s got to be a deal where we focus on keeping the best players right here in our state at their university. For us to do that we have to be visible, we have to be out their earning it.”

Beaty is in his third stint with the Jayhawks having served as KU’s wide receivers coach from 2008-09 then again as receivers coach as well as co-offensive coordinator in 2011. He’s spent the last three seasons as an assistant at Texas A&M.

The Football in February tour is stopping in Hutchinson tonight and will be in Topeka, Kansas City and Wichita in the coming weeks.