Kansas head coach David Beaty, right, screams from the sidelines during the third quarter on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017 at Peden Stadium in Athens, Ohio.

Five days after Kansas football parted ways with Zach Yenser, its offensive line coach for the previous three seasons, David Beaty has found his replacement.

A former O-line coach at Missouri, Western Michigan and Illinois, A.J. Ricker will take over the same position at KU, Beaty announced Wednesday afternoon.

“A.J. has seen it all,” Beaty stated in a release. “He has both coached and played with the best of the best. I like the way his offensive linemen play. They are tough, gritty guys. They play with tenacity and I am looking forward to him bringing that edge to our program.”

Ricker worked this past season as an offensive analyst on Mike Gundy’s staff, at Oklahoma State, where he worked directly with the Cowboys’ offensive linemen. He served in a similar role in 2016, at Houston.

A graduate of longtime KU rival Missouri, where he played center, Ricker was voted a first-team All-Big 12 performer by the league’s coaches during his senior season of 2003.

Kansas offensive line coach A.J. Ricker

Years later, Ricker coached the Tigers’ offensive line from 2014-15, a stint during which he worked with left tackle Mitch Morse, who became a second-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2015.

A graduate assistant position at Western Michigan helped Ricker break into the profession. He worked in that role for the 2006 and 2007 seasons, before advancing to a full-time assistant role as offensive line coach in 2008.

Ricker moved to St. Joseph’s College (in Rensselaer, Ind.) as O-line coach in 2009, and even spent the 2010 season as the program’s head coach before later returning to WMU for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, as the O-line coach and run-game coordinator.

Following his second stint at Western Michigan, Ricker spent 2013 and 2014 coaching offensive linemen at Illinois.

As a player, Ricker started 47-consecutive games at center for the Tigers from 2000-03, which established a record at any position at MU at the time. He spent two years as a team captain.

Ricker earned an undergraduate degree from Mizzou in agriculture in 2004. After graduating, he signed a free-agent contract with the Chicago Bears and was allocated to the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe in 2005. In 2006, and for part of 2007, he was a member of the Arena Football League’s Tampa Bay Storm before retiring.

Ricker and his wife, Lauren, have one son, Andrew.

This past week, FOX Sports’ Bruce Feldman reported Jeremy Springer will become KU’s next special teams coordinator. The university has not announced any hire for that position. Beaty did not retain former Kansas special teams coordinator Joe DeForest.