LAWRENCE — Before coaching a game, the current football staff at Kansas visited each high school in the state just to initiate contact.
Sometimes in places with no goal posts planted on the open prairie.
“We went into a lot of schools that don’t even play football,’’ KU coach David Beaty said.
Yet that was partly the point. No preconceived notions about recruiting were substantiated by forming a select list of high schools with strong programs. The point of the “Kansas Blitz’’ was to promote the Jayhawks brand. Everywhere in the state.
This was another new brand, mind you — featuring a young first-year coach who must build numbers to fortify a depleted roster and do so, in part, by pushing walk-on opportunities.