Kansas University defensive coordinator/safeties coach Clint Bowen, left, and co-defensive coordinator/cornerbacks coach Kenny Perry.

After spending just a couple of days with them on the field, first-year Kansas University football coach David Beaty was ready to proclaim the teaming of defensive assistants Clint Bowen and Kenny Perry a rousing success.

“That has been a great, great marriage,” Beaty said. “Those guys work so good together. They’re both really, really good defensive minds. And as we built that system, we borrowed a little bit from each.”

It remains to be seen exactly what the new Kansas defense will look like or how it will operate — early indications suggest a 4-2-5 base defense – but how it will be coached already is clear.

In Perry, a longtime Beaty friend who joined the KU staff after two seasons at TCU, Bowen has been paired with a guy who has the same style and many of the same philosophies.

Kansas defensive coordinator Clint Bowen works with Fish Smithson on Thursday, March 26, 2015.

Bowen, in his 17th season of coaching at KU under his fourth head coach, has a couple of different names for those.

“As DB coaches, we always live on the edge a little bit and have that gunfighter mentality,” Bowen said during last week’s meeting with the media. “There’s no such thing as a pretty good gunfighter. And I think Kenny has that same (mindset), as well.”

Earlier in the day, Bowen painted a similar picture for a separate group of reporters but used different words.

“I think all DB coaches have that alligator-hunter mentality,” Bowen said. “There’s no such thing as a pretty good alligator hunter.”

Bowen, KU’s defensive coordinator, coaches the safeties, and Perry, KU’s co-defensive coordinator, coaches the cornerbacks. Only five players with any noteworthy playing time on their résumés return to KU’s secondary, and even that group — Greg Allen, Matthew Boateng, Ronnie Davis, Tevin Shaw and Fish Smithson — includes guys who have spent most of their careers as back-ups or role players.

That’s what has made the hard, black-and-white bottom line such an important part of the spring for KU’s D-backs.

Kansas co-defensive coordinator and cornerbacks coach Kenny Perry sends tight end Ben Johnson up the field as receivers run routs against the cornerbacks during spring practice on Tuesday, March 24, 2015.

“The margin for error with the position that we coach is zero,” Bowen said. “If you make a mistake, everyone in the world knows it, and you’re on ‘SportsCenter.’ Kenny coaches that way, and I think, in the secondary, you have to have that sense of urgency.”

Bowen continued: “That’s where we’re at. We’re in the process of developing kids right now, and those guys have to understand that we try, as DB coaches, to make it as hard as we can in practice so that the game doesn’t get too big for ’em. Let’s face it: We’re in the Big 12 Conference. Bad things are gonna happen. If they can’t handle us being hard on ’em here, if there’s 80,000 people there and they just did something wrong, where’s their mentality gonna go? I think our kids are starting to understand that, and they’re gonna need to because you can’t make a mistake.”

Whether it’s yelling and screaming on the field during drills or laughing and joking with one arm around a player after practices, Bowen and Perry operate similarly.

Beaty said those similarities made meshing the newcomer Perry with the ultimate KU guy something that seemed equal parts obvious and exciting.

“He just wants to win,” Beaty said of Bowen. “So if he can see something or find something better, then he’s open to it. That guy studies like nobody’s business. We made a few changes here and there, but really, fundamentally, we’re about the same. I think just some of the procedure on how we do it and the ways that we approach practice and our preparation has been very helpful.”