Mike Gundy Confirms Sanders Likely Out One Month

After his Pokes beat West Virginia on Saturday in Morgantown — where he’s lost just one time in his career — Mike Gundy updated everyone on Spencer Sanders and his injured thumb.

“I don’t know the term other than it’s a lot like what Drew Brees had,” said Gundy.

Brees missed five weeks of the NFL slate earlier this year after surgery and a cast on his throwing thumb. So presumably, Sanders could be back for a bowl game.

“It’s interesting, last week he played three series with it,” said Gundy. “Basically his thumb, it doesn’t have any attachments. I don’t know what it’s called. I think there’s a ligament or something in there. I made a C in biology. Did better in kinesiology. He threw the ball to (Dillon) Stoner, the long pass, and he didn’t have any thumb.”

What a sentence. Here’s the pass (if this is the one Gundy is referencing).

“He’s a competitive little guy,” added Gundy. “He’s kinda like the Tasmanian Devil. He just keeps rolling all the time. Finally, the doctors made him come out. Then they went down on Tuesday, I don’t know whatever day, they said he needs to get it fixed. Four to five weeks.”

Sanders noted on Saturday that he was making sure to Twitter with his left thumb.

OSU obviously missed one of the best rushers in the Big 12 on Saturday (thankfully it has — by far — the best in No. 30), and Gundy said that OSU had very little time to prepare for life without Sanders this week. With, uh, Shaun Taylor serving as Dru Brown’s backup last week and possibly in Bedlam, OSU couldn’t afford to let Brown go wild like Sanders has done for most of the season.

“I started calling for (quarterback runs) in the second half, and Sean (Gleeson) ran some of it,” said Gundy. “Because we didn’t have that, they were running with Chuba. Wherever Chuba went, they were going, which is pretty smart.

“So we started doing some of it in the third quarter and early fourth quarter, and it helped us a little bit. … There’s no secret, you gotta be smart. When you’re in the position we are, we gotta protect our guys as best we can, but we also have to do what we can do to win.”

Saturday is a kitchen-sink game for sure. Last game of the year. Last game for around a month. Last game of Brown’s career. It’s unfortunate that they’ll be without Sanders in a game and an environment in which I think he would absolutely thrive, but the good news here is two-fold: 1. His injury doesn’t sound serious in the long term and 2. OSU’s backup is capable (and swaggy!) enough to get the job done himself.