The Top 5 Quotes from Doug Meacham’s Pre-UCF News Conference

STILLWATER — The Cowboys’ attention turns to the Bounce House, still in search of an elusive Big 12 win.

Oklahoma State interim coach Doug Meacham held his weekly media news conference Monday to preview the Cowboys’ trip to Orlando. OSU plays UCF at 3 p.m. (Central) on Saturday on ESPN+. Here are five things that stood out from Meacham.

1. ‘The Sun Came Up’

Meacham sounded as down as he has all season in his postgame news conference after the Cowboys’ 14-6 loss to Kansas State over the weekend.

Although he still wasn’t fired up about the result, he said he was in a better place Monday.

“I woke up Sunday, when the sun came up and I had my health, and had a great day,” said Meacham in his opening statement. “So I’m in a little bit better place. Obviously, like I said in the press conference, you do all the things necessary to get down there and then you turn it over, you’re not going to beat too many teams doing that, especially a K-State, Iowa State-type team that does it a different way. They typically take care of the football pretty well and burn the clock up. When you get those opportunities, you can’t do it. I’m proud on a lot of levels about a lot of different things, and just kind of wish that we could find a way to break through. That’s kind of basically it at this point.”

2. Gavin Freeman ‘Dies Hard’

Tis the season to debate whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie.

In discussing how hard slot receiver Gavin Freeman plays, Meacham said the Cowboys’ leading receiver “dies hard.”

“He dies hard, you know what I’m saying?” Meacham said. “That’s football. Who wants to run out of bounds?

“He kinda reminds me, I remember a long time ago, I was recruiting a kid named Artrell Woods out of Bryan High School. And I went to his basketball practice, and they would scrimmage and there was no out of bounds. The ball went in the stands, they kept fighting for the ball. The clock didn’t stop, play didn’t stop ever, for like 30 minutes. And I went, that may be one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen, ever. I mean, the ball was under the basket, and they were slamming into the wall trying to get the ball, and no one stopped play. I was like, man, what a great drill.

“And that’s kind of the way (Freeman) is. Strain, has ability, ball skills, fearless, makes plays. When his number’s called, he makes it happen. Which means you probably should call his number a little bit more.  Now, I don’t know if he needs to throw any more passes. I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s like that at practice. He’s the guy with grass stains all over his uniform at practice because he’s laying out for everything at practice. He’s a great kid, and I’m glad he’s on our team. He kinda embodies what our fanbase looks to have on their ball team. He’s been great, love him. He’s done great. And probably, I would say, probably the most productive one we have at this point.”

3. The Importance of Having High-Character Guys in a Tough Season

The Cowboys have obviously taken their fair share of lumps this season.

Just three games into the season, the whole roster had an opportunity to call it a year and hop in the transfer portal. While some did that, there has still been a group to stick together and attempt to push through the adversity.

“You have a bunch of guys that don’t have that type of character, we may have 60 guys on this team, you know what I’m saying?” Meacham said. “A lot of people are giving us credit as coaches, and trust me, we’ll take some of it, but at the same time, if we didn’t recruit the type of guys that we have, if we didn’t dive deep into what kind of a person they are, we’d probably be down to about 50 guys right now. So, we did a good job picking the right guys, for the most part. It means a lot to coach guys that it means something to. The bottom line is, if you don’t want to fail or mess up or do the wrong thing because you’re worried about what your teammates might think, that’s what you’re after.”

4. Scott Frost Is ‘Funny as Hell’

Meacham and Scott Frost, UCF’s coach, were finalists for the Broyles Award back in 2014, and now they’ll meet as head coaches on Saturday.

How’s this for a group? The five semifinalists for the Broyles, given to the nation’s top assistant, in that 2014 season were Meacham (TCU’s OC), Frost (Oregon’s OC), Lane Kiffin (Alabama’s OC), Tom Herman (Ohio State’s OC) and Dave Steckel (Missouri’s DC).

Frost took UCF’s head job in 2016 and led the Knights to a perfect 13-0 record in 2017 before Nebraska, his alma mater, hired him away. After a 16-31 record across five seasons with the Cornhuskers, Frost is back on the UCF sideline.

Meacham said he got to know him a bit because of the Broyles Award.

“He looks like he’s stoic, really super-quiet — he’s actually funny as hell,” Meacham said. “He’s real dry humor but really smart and really a good guy. He’s not gonna be the life of the party, but when he does talk, he’s fun to be around. I liked him.”

5. On Zane Flores

OSU quarterback Zane Flores certainly didn’t have the best of days in the Cowboys’ loss to Kansas State this weekend.

Flores had four turnovers, threw for 233 yards and ran for 25 yards.

It’s never good to have four turnovers in a game, but for clarity’s sake, one of his interceptions came as his arm was hit on a throw, the other interception was an end-of-half heave to the end zone and both fumbles came as he was hit in the pocket. Again, not good, but better than just staring down a linebacker before throwing him the ball or scrambling while holding the ball like a loaf of bread.

In the two games since returning from an injury suffered in the Arizona game on Oct. 4, Flores has averaged 234 passing yards a game while completing 72% of his passes. In the first five games Flores played this season, he averaged 139.2 passing yards a game while completing 55% of his passes.

“I think he improved more in the film room in those situations because you can reflect back on it and watch yourself doing stuff wrong and it kind of resonates,” Meacham said. “You have time to take a deep breath and sit there and let it absorb and soak in.

“I’ve always said that, too, about spring practice. When you get done with spring practice and get back to watching the cut-ups as a player, you probably learn and get better faster from doing that than actually going through spring. It’s watching yourself doing this right or that wrong, and you got two or three months there to absorb that going into camp. I think it helps improve you.”