Gundy Not Comfortable With Special Teams Mistakes at West Virginia

A reporter asked Mike Gundy a question about special teams in his postgame press conference Saturday, and Gundy muttered an expletive under his breath before answering.

The Oklahoma State coach felt a little catharsis after his team’s 50-39 road victory against West Virginia. The Cowboys somehow put up 50 points against a top 25 Mountaineers team despite giving the ball away four times and committing what seemed like hundreds of special teams errors that “put us in a completely different game.”

Matt Ammendola missed his first extra point attempt of his career late in the first quarter. Zach Sinor muffed the hold, making Ammendola look more like Charlie Brown than a Power Five kicker.

Not good. ? pic.twitter.com/KqKnzF1Lyw

— Pistols Firing (@pistolsguys) October 28, 2017

In the second quarter, Sinor dribbled a lowly 28-yard punt. Then in the third, Ammendola missed a field goal by about a Glenn Spencer KFC and had a kickoff carry out of bounds. To top it off and ignite a 14-0 run in 50 seconds, the Mountaineers blocked a punt in the end zone and fell on it for a score.

Can't take that long to punt out of end zone. #WVU scores off blocked punt, just got Pick 6. #Mountaineers only down 6. #OKSTvsWVU pic.twitter.com/IaxeyDMVU0

— Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) October 28, 2017

Sinor’s Heisman campaign seemed a lot less funny a little later in the game when backup punter Matt Hockett came in and downed a punt inside the 10, but Gundy laughed.

“I’m almost embarrassed to tell you that we spend probably more time on it now than we ever have in my career as a head coach,” Gundy said postgame. “I wouldn’t want to lead you down the wrong path. We work on it a lot.”

Gundy said he and the coaches will come up with a plan to improve the special teams play, but there has to be real concern that if your punter has given up two touchdowns, and your kicker has left 19 points on the field while so much work is being put pumped into it. And Gundy knows that.

He said he knows it doesn’t look like the Cowboys work on their special teams.

OSU is last in the nation in special teams efficiency by a huge margin, according to ESPN, based on the point contributions of each unit to the team’s scoring margin, on a per-play basis. The values are adjusted for strength of schedule and down-weighted for “garbage time.”

Luckily for the Cowboys, their offense is the second-highest in efficiency, behind … Oklahoma, OSU’s next opponent. But make no mistake, if Bedlam comes down to special teams, the edge is clear, which, based on what Gundy is saying, has to be excruciatingly frustrating.

“We are putting more time into it — when you’re talking about the combination of meetings and walkthroughs and actual reps in practice — than we ever have,” he said. “… I’m just not comfortable with our special teams right now.”

And that’s good because none of us are either.