MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Before David Beaty lined up his Kansas team for its first practice in 2015, the new Jayhawks coach’s challenge was all too apparent — in a game of attrition, he had what amounted to an empty cupboard.
The predicament was through no doing of his own, but he was left to deal with the consequences of a baffling reality. Seven years after winning the Orange Bowl, Kansas didn’t have enough players to run a proper practice.
In one of the more bizarre stories in college football, the Jayhawks, under no kind of NCAA sanctions, entered the season with 64 scholarship players, 21 below the Football Bowl Subdivision limit (for reference, Penn State, saddled with NCAA punishments from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, had 66 entering the 2013 season).