KU football hires former SMU and Houston assistant Jason Phillips to coach receivers

Kansas football coach David Beaty announced the hiring of receivers coach Jason Phillips on Sunday, adding a veteran coach with a long history of working in the Air Raid offensive system.

To make room for Phillips, a former assistant at SMU and Houston, Beaty re-assigned special teams coordinator Gary Hyman to an off-field role. Division I college football programs are limited to nine full-time assistant coaches.

Beaty said Phillips, a graduate of Houston with many ties in Texas, will team with receivers coach Klint Kubiak to coach the Jayhawks’ pass catchers.

“Typically in the air raid offense there are two coaches working with wide receivers,” Beaty said in a statement announcing Phillips’ hiring. “With Jason joining our staff, he and Klint can join forces to provide us a great pair of coaches working with our players at those positions.”

In his most recent coaching stint, Phillips spent three years on the staff at SMU, serving as co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach from 2012-14. He has also worked as an assistant for both Art Briles and Kevin Sumlin at Houston.

“Jason’s reputation for developing wide receivers speaks for itself,” Beaty said. “Everywhere he has been he has pushed his players to excel at the highest level. I have learned a great deal from him about wide receiver play and I am very excited that he is now a part of our staff because of his knowledge of the game, not to mention what he can do for us in recruiting.

“He has been a player on the national recruiting scene throughout his career, and he has very strong ties in the state of Texas, in particular, the cities of Houston and Dallas.”

Beaty said Hyman, who came to Kansas last year, will take on a new role as a special-teams analyst. According to NCAA rules, he will not be allowed to do any on-field coaching or recruiting.

“Gary will continue to be a very valuable member of our staff, it will just be in a different role,” Beaty said. “Gary will be a huge asset to our special teams, he will just be impacting them from an off-the-field position. With the addition of Jason and carving out this role for Gary, I am ecstatic with how we have been able to expand our staff.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2015 at 8:00 PM with the headline "KU football hires former SMU and Houston assistant Jason Phillips to coach receivers."