The Top 5 Quotes from Doug Meacham’s Post-Arizona News Conference

TUCSON, Arizona — Doug Meacham’s first road game as the Cowboys’ coach ended in a 41-13 loss.

Here are five things Meacham said after the game. You can watch his full news conference below.

1. Not Worried about Chaotic Week

It’s been another strange week in the Cowboy football sphere.

After Mike Gundy and Todd Grantham were dismissed, the roster has been in a bit of flux. Gundy’s firing opened a 30-day portal window for OSU players. It also coincided with the Cowboys coming up on four games, meaning redshirt decisions had to be made.

All of that rolled into guys redshirting, hopping in the portal, or a combination of both. Here’s what Meacham said about the chaos of the week.

“It’s the price of doing business, man,” Meacham said. “It’s what we do. You know those guys in New York, at NASDAQ, they’re on the floor trading stocks. That’s the way it goes. You just gotta do the best you can.

“It’s a great job. There’s a lot of people — when you think about it, there’s 130 Division I schools, 10 full-time coaches per, that’s 1,300 jobs in the whole world. I’m very fortunate to be sitting right here and be a part of it. The workload and figuring out portal and all that stuff, that’s just part of it, man. You know what I mean? That’s the job.”

2. But What about Game-Planning?

The control what you can control idea is a sports cliche for a reason — it’s all coaches and athletes can do. No need to worry about things that you can’t control.

But what Meacham and his staff has control of is game-planning, and those concepts are impacted by who is available. So, what was it like game-planning in a week where Meacham wasn’t exactly sure who was going to play?

“It’s like a box of chocolates, you know what I’m saying?” Meacham said. “Not a ‘Forrest Gump’ reference or anything, but yeah, you gotta find foundational plays and you have to make quick decisions by Monday and go with what you got, the information you have at that time. And if someone becomes available, Tuesday, Wednesday, then it’s a bonus. I know one thing: there’s not a fan or anybody on the planet that likes to hear about an injury report. No one cares, and that’s OK. But, we’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna get these guys going.

“I just love the players. With all the stuff and a game like today, looking into their eyes at the end of that game right there, that’s encouraging to me.”

3. How Does OSU Get the Offense Going?

OSU’s offense, which Meacham coordinates, mustered just 158 yards on Saturday.

Adding injury to that insult, quarterback Zane Flores went down with an injury that seems to have his availability up in the air.

Here’s Meacham on what the first steps will be to get this offense going again.

“Well, I’d like to be able to run and pass,” Meacham said. “Play catch, you know what I mean? It’s gonna be difficult for a day or so to probably answer some of those questions because we don’t know what direction we’re gonna go, especially at the quarterback position.

“We certainly need to look at our run game a little bit more in depth and get a little bit more foundational there. Maybe dial back on some of the other stuff and try to gain advantage and play foundational football. … We’re gonna work super-hard and dig through and find some plays that are gonna give us a chance. We just need to improve our offense, do a better job.”

4. On Clint Bowen’s OSU DC Debut

Clint Bowen called his first game as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator on Saturday.

Bowen is in his first season with OSU and initially came on in an offensive quality control role. Since this past Sunday, Bowen has flipped over to the defensive side of the ball, managed the roster scrambling as much he could and put a defense on the field.

It obviously wasn’t the best of days considering OSU gave up 41 points and 478 yards of total offense, but there were some positives — like holding Arizona to 1.4 yards a carry and forcing three turnovers.

Man, hats off to him,” Meacham said. “Could you imagine a short week like that and having to speak their language immediately. It’s kinda like going to another country and knowing their language when you walk through the door. He did a good job simplifying. He rallied those guys. You could see the energy they had over there, even when we were down.

“He’s a really smart guy, he’s a really good motivator and he’s good with those kids. I think he had a great plan. Numerically, it wasn’t good, but again, it was partly because we couldn’t move the football. … I think what’ll happen defensively under his guidance is they’ll get better and better and better. And they’ll get more confident. He did a great job.”

5. On OSU’s Quarterback Situation

With the aforementioned Flores injury, the quarterback position seems up in the air in the immediate aftermath of that game.

Wide receiver (and former QB) Sam Jackson V got some more run at the position Saturday, and true freshman Banks Bowen, son of Clint, played the fourth quarter.

“We have Bowen, who came in there at the end,” Meacham said. “And we have Sam, will probably get a little bit more with his little package. We had a little seven-play package for him that, at times, hit on a few things, but we’ll see how it goes. This is all new. We gotta get back and access and see where we are and who’s available and try to get a plan moving forward and get ready for the next one.”