David Beaty was hired to fix Kansas football. Three years later, so was Jeff Long.



In Long’s first few months on the job, the Jayhawks’ new athletic director must diagnose why this program has become so uncompetitive in the Big 12 over the past decade. And he must decide whether Beaty, his fourth-year head coach, is the man with the plan to fix it.



“It’s time to break the cycle,” Long said at his introductory news conference last week. “It’s not gonna be easy.”



Before he makes any decisions, Long must fully understand the scholarship crisis that Beaty inherited when he took over the program in 2015. Because calling it disastrous might be an understatement.



Kansas’ scholarship problem, created by former head coach Charlie Weis, his botched blueprint and a long list of complicating factors, has made this by far the hardest coaching job at the Power 5 level. There are few other head coaches in...