It Doesn’t Seem Like Mike Gundy Thought Intentional Grounding Would Be Called

So the officials screwed up in Stillwater on Saturday. We know that. They admitted that after the game.

But Mike Gundy screwed up as well, and not for the reason you probably think. Gundy didn’t screw up because he didn’t know the rule about how a loss-of-downs penalty should not have resulted in an untimed down. He screwed up because he basically didn’t think intentional grounding would be called to begin with. Which is sort of crazy when you think about it.

“I asked the official, and they said, ‘a penalty on the offensive team with the clock expired cannot end the game,'” said Gundy. “Either way it was a bad decision on my part to throw the ball while we were still in the box with intentional grounding. If it would have come across my mind that they would consider a tackle box — which by rule they were correct — I’m guessing then we would have just said ‘take two steps [walks to the left] and throw.'”

Then he walked two steps to his left to indicate Rudolph getting out of the tackle box.

So Gundy didn’t think Rudolph would be called for intentional grounding because … ?? He should have just had Justice Hill take the ball through GIA and all the way to Perkins Road a la Justin Blackmon back in 2011 at Texas A&M.

Although to be fair, this actually happened against Oklahoma State back in 2014 and wasn’t called intentional grounding on Jameis Winston and Florida State.

https://twitter.com/Pokes_State/status/774726184370221057

Still, this seems like an inexcusable gaffe. All Gundy had to do for OSU to win was to tell him to take run slightly to his left. Ballgame. The end.

Mason Rudolph: "I love Coach Gundy. I’ve loved him since the day I signed here. I’ll do anything for him. I was just following orders."

— Guerin Emig (@GuerinEmig) September 10, 2016