Bedlam Post Mortem: Q&A Session With Porter (Part 2)

I did a Q&A sesh with our PFB+ folks in The Chamber and decided to answer the best of the Qs here on the site. Let the catharsis wash over you.

Part 1 here.

• I’d like to know your thoughts on next season. Ceiling if all eligible players return and SS improves as most QBs do after a year under their belt, how good can that team be?
Floor if SS plays at the same level he ended the season on, and we lose our stars to the draft… where does that put us?

Ceiling: You can win the Big 12 next year with a Tylan-Sanders-Chu triumvirate and the returning defense you have.

A problem — That trio ain’t returning.

Floor: I think your floor is probably 6-6 if things go pretty badly and you don’t find a legit 1-2 RB punch and Sanders is the same and you don’t get all those late-season turnovers. The variance is real right now before draft declarations.

• Would you take this decade of OSU football every decade for the rest of your life? Or would you roll the dice on the program reverting back to the 1990s Era in an effort to have a better decade?

Yes. In less time than it takes to spell Amen Ogbongbemiga. An aside: Do you think Canadian kids count “one Ogbongbemiga two Ogbongbemiga” the way Americans count “one Mississippi two Mississippi”? Another aside: Did you see the Chuba feature on GameDay? How strained were the locals talking about football in northeast Oklahoma?? It was tough. It’s like, “Oh yeah we’ve heard of the kid who runs a 4.38 and is having one of the great seasons in CFB history but really listen let me tell you about this backup left winger the Oilers’ farm club just signed.”

We are officially off the rails.

• Did Gundy “earn” his extension this year? Do you think it’s more likely Gundy will do what Chris Petersen did and resign abruptly or have a long slow decline?

Gundy’s extension is like how the CFP views Bama and Ohio State. Doesn’t have to prove it, just has to not disprove it. If he did that last year then he certainly did it this year.

As for Gundy’s tenure in STW. I think it’s easy to talk about X years of this or Y years of that when your kids are still at home. After they all leave (which is happening soon), what are you going to go do? Enter pigs into contests at the Payne County Fair? Come on. Gundy’s time in Stillwater is a long way from being over, and I actually think we might see one last jolt with his energy in recruiting over the next few years before the beginning of the end.

• What are the expectations that should be stated for the next coach? How many wins overall must he be better than Gundy to keep his job?

Big picture, this is such a fascinating question. There’s now a new floor, a new standard at OSU that has existed for long enough that the expectation is that it wouldn’t go anywhere. You can say, “Well Pat Jones did this in the 1980s and that standard wasn’t kept.” There’s a big difference between six years and 15, and as Justin F. pointed out in an email earlier this week, it takes a LONG time to establish yourself at the adult table in college football.

I would say eight-win seasons are a new norm in Stillwater, USA. If you go to Ames, you get contract extensions for eight-win seasons. That’s what should be expected at OSU. Sure, you’re going to fall below that at times, and you’re going to labor against OU. But eight- to nine-win seasons with the occasional “we’re 10-2 or 11-1 with a real shot at the conference title and the PFB crew is up late on Tuesday nights writing about CFP implications” season. Maybe once every three to five years. Something like that. I think all of that is reasonable based on where Gundy has hauled the program.*

*With a lot of help.

• Kyle, I would be interested in a story about how Clemson has gotten better at recruiting since Dabo took over. I know you and others use this as an example of what OSU could do and become. I am coming to agree with this but my question is how did Dabo do it? Is it something that OSU can really do without a major increase in money?

I might write a 27-part offseason series on the Clemson-Oklahoma State parallels.

• How hands-off has HCMG become I wonder? Is he hands off the offense? Everyone thinks he’s involved, but he says some things like “They should have been throwing to Chuba earlier in the year,” which the fans were saying, but how can HCMG say that? He has the ability to tell them to do it.

He might be going too far to the Mack Brown side of CEO and needs to get back up in everybody’s business and make everyone uncomfortable again. For example, why did it take SS fumbling 10 times (slight exaggeration) before they drilled it into him to not drop it? Isn’t that QB school 101? Weeden came onto the pod and said he had noticed it early on that SS carried it like a loaf of bread.

So that’s my question, should HCMG get up in everybody’s biz and instead of trying to make them comfortable make them uncomfortable so they are forced to grow and become better?

This is a good question, but I think the problem is that it’s not really his style. It’s not his personality. So when you start doing things that are outside your style and personality they can come off as disingenuous or bitter. That line is a thin one, isn’t it? The line you have to walk of family + culture and on the other side, excellence. He’s done it pretty well so far, but I think you’re right that he could assert his power at least a little bit more in the coming months and years in a way that is both effective and generous.

Not in a “Here are the plays you should run” way but rather, “Hey, we need to be better … a lot better in every area” way. Good leaders use power to empower others. Gundy has done that, but the question is whether he could do it with better direction and — for lack of a more appropriate term — better coaching.