The Top 5 Quotes from Mike Gundy’s Pre-Baylor News Conference

STILLWATER — The Cowboys’ losing streak increased to four games this past weekend, and up next is a trip to Waco.

Mike Gundy met with reporters Monday for his weekly media luncheon. OSU plays Baylor at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at McLane Stadium. Here are five quotes that stood out from Monday with video of his full news conference below.

1. On What Presley Means to the Program

Oklahoma State has a pantheon of great receivers in its history, but Brennan Presley is just 27 catches away from tying the program record.

Now, Presley has had five seasons to accomplish such a feat, but through four years, the speedy slot guy from Bixby was already fourth on OSU’s all-time list. He has since surpassed James Washington and Justin Blackmon — who combined have three Biletnikoffs — to get into second behind Rashaun Woods.

Presley came up big on OSU’s would’ve-been game-winning drive Friday against BYU. He caught five passes during the 8:22 drive, including the go-ahead touchdown. He finished the game with those five catches for 43 yards and a touchdown, an 11-yard rush and a 16-yard passing touchdown.

“He’s always played 75 plays,” Gundy said. “Now he’s out some because he’s beat up. We try to protect him a little more than we did. The amount of years, the special teams, and the hits, and the crucial plays in critical times that he makes, and what he does in practice is crazy good. I told them yesterday — not him, I haven’t found him yet — but I told the trainers and I told (Kasey) Dunn I don’t even want him practicing this week. He’s gonna be the same guy on Saturday if he practices four days or not, to a certain extent, and he needs a break. And he won’t do it. He’s mad when he doesn’t get to go back in games. West Virginia, I think it was, he wanted to go back in, and I said, ‘I don’t want you back in the game.’ At practice, I try to get him to get out of drills. He doesn’t want to get out of drills.

“So, I’m not gonna let him. You know how trainers take a young man’s helmet if he’s got a ding head? Well I’m just gonna take his helmet. He needs a break, so that’s what we’re gonna do is give him a break this week.”

Gundy was also asked about whether there were similarities between Presley and Malcolm Rodriguez — a former OSU linebacker turned contributor of a winning Detroit Lions team.

“Both undersized,” Gundy said. “Both like little rubber balls. Competitive. Never get tired. Athletic. Continue to make plays, and you’re like, ‘Wow.’ Both those guys do that. I don’t know pay attention to the NFL Draft prospects of players because it’s not anything that I control. I don’t know where he stands on any of that. But somebody will take him at some point, and he’ll get into camp and then they won’t be able to cut him. They’ll go into meetings, and they’re like, ‘Well, we can’t cut him.’ That’d be my guess, which is the same thing that kinda happened to Rodriguez.”

2. What Stands Out About Maealiuaki Smith

After the Garret Rangel injury, Gundy said postgame in Provo that Alan Bowman would resume QB1 duties. Now with Rangel and Zane Flores on the shelf, true freshman quarterback Maealiuaki Smith is just a play away from seeing the field, which seemed a long way off back in August.

Smith was a consensus three-star recruit but had an impressive offer list coming out of Junipero Serra in northern California that included Florida State, Miami, Missouri, Kentucky, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, BYU and others. Here is what Gundy said about Smith on Monday.

“We’re giving him more reps,” Gundy said. “Kind of what we saw in high school. He runs around. He can be elusive. He’s an accurate thrower, but the role that he’s played up until a couple weeks ago, you don’t know much because he’s looking at cards and going against the other team’s defense. So you don’t know a lot about him.”

If you’re wondering what Smith looked like in high school, here are some highlights:

3. On the Bowl Streak

OSU needs to win three of its remaining five games to keep it’s bowl streak alive for a 19th consecutive season.

Given how the Cowboys have played over the past month, that might be a tall task. A lot of pride is taken in that bowl streak among the OSU fanbase, but Gundy didn’t totally sound married to the streak when fielding a question about it Monday.

“Well, it’s important to try to do the best we can and try to grow and win this game,” Gundy said. “And if we don’t do that, it becomes even more difficult. I’ve had a couple people ask me (about the importance of the bowl streak). Beyond that, I’m gonna go back to what I said earlier. I have to evaluate the situation based on the hand that we’ve been dealt each week. I don’t think it would be fair for me to say that it’s not important, but most things that go on in society today, somebody will talk about them and two days later, nobody cares anymore — unfortunately. That’s the way the world works.

“We would love to play the best of our ability this week and find a way to get one more notch closer, but we also have to try to continue, I’m going to use the word again, to grow as program to where we are each week. Because our job as coaches is to make sure we play a little better each week, and over the last month, we didn’t. There’s two or three games where we didn’t play better. We went backwards, so we failed as coaches. We stepped up and played better this week, and that’s more important to me now than anything else.”

4. On Player Retention in a Tough Season

The 2022 season was the last time the Cowboys had an unexpectedly bad season. That season saw a bit of a mass exodus via the transfer portal.

With the Cowboys at 3-4 and the bowl streak in danger, Gundy was asked about player retention. NIL has come a long way in the past two years, leading to Gundy’s answer.

“Player retention is based on money,” Gundy said. “I’ll give you an example — if you’re playing on our team and we go [3-9] and right now you’re making $12,000, and we say, ‘Hey, if you come back, we’ll pay you 250 (thousand).’ What are you gonna do? Player retention is probably 90% built on money now — not other things. It’s changed.”

5. Rodney Fields Jr.’s Redshirt Situation

Rodney Fields Jr. saw his first action in a college football game this past weekend, and he raised some eyebrows.

The former Del City standout took eight handoffs and ran for 38 yards.

“Pretty good, but we’ve seen that, right?” Gundy said. “We’ve seen it since August with him. Has ability. He’s never been in games, but you know that environment we played in was as difficult an environment that we’ve played in since I’ve been coach here, and he just went out and played like it was no big deal.”

OSU is now in a bit of an awkward situation as it pertains to Fields’ redshirt. He can play in three more regular-season games and keep his redshirt, but OSU has five games left. It’ll apparently be up to Fields.

“Those decisions are made by the players, not me,” Gundy said. “Not anymore.”