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Notebook: Givens Impresses, Video Board Confusion, Gundy on Boone

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8 years ago

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STILLWATER — Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy held his weekly media luncheon in Boone Pickens Stadium. Here are a few takeaways from his Week 2 presser.

Givens earns starting spot on special teams

Big 12 Newcomer of the Week Chuba Hubbard isn’t Mike Gundy’s only track star.

Malik Givens, a redshirt junior out of Booker T. Washington, has been on OSU’s track team as a sprinter since 2016, but Saturday, Givens, now a walk-on defensive back on the football team, will find himself starting on special teams after impressing against Missouri State.

While it was an impressive play, it wasn’t the first time Gundy said he noticed Givens. Gundy said Givens spent time on the scout punt and kickoff teams last week where the OSU starters couldn’t keep up with him.

“We couldn’t block him the whole week,” Gundy said. “We never blocked him. So, I was watching the tape with the special teams during the week, and I said, ‘We don’t have anybody that can block him.’ It was just ironic I said, ‘We should have him starting for us.’ We just went on down the road then he got in the game and did what he did. After that, we made him a starter. So, he’ll be starting for us at least on punt and maybe on kickoff.”

Givens won state titles in the 100- and 200-meter dashes in high school. He was also All-Big 12 in the 60-meter dash in 2016 and 2017 before coming over to the football team this season.

“He’s kind of an example of our Cowboy culture, things that make us proud around here,” Gundy said. “He’s a young man that’s doing it for free. He’s not entitled to anything at all. He doesn’t feel like that we owe him anything. There’s so many athletes and coaches at our level that just feel like everybody should give them something because of what they do or who they are.

“We have 135 guys on our team, and only 83 of them are on scholarship. So, you see the large number of young men that say, ‘I wanna play ’cause I love the game.’ He falls in that category.”

Gundy’s theories on video board startup

The big reveal of turning on Boone Pickens Stadium’s new monstrous video board took a while.

When Gundy and the team came out to warm up before Thursday’s game against Missouri State, it wasn’t turned on, and Gundy said he wasn’t sure what was going on. He had a few theories as to why it wasn’t turned on yet. The top one was that it malfunctioned.

“At first I thought, ‘This is great; it’s not working,'” Gundy said.

Theory No. 2? OSU athletic director Mike Holder was saving some money on the electric bill.

It all ended up working out and the success of it all prompted a phone call between Gundy and T. Boone Pickens, who had to miss Thursday’s game.

“That was the one reason that I called him was to tell him that, ‘I knew you couldn’t come, but I wish you coulda been here to see the stadium just the proximity of it and the crowd and the sound and now the video board, it’s just really the final touch,'” Gundy said. “It’s a heck of a place to play a game.”

Boone and bananas

Speaking of T. Boone, Monday’s media luncheon was the first time Gundy talked about the donor’s yearly address.

Gundy addressed Pickens’ statement of “I’m in this to win a national championship.” with:

“I think it’s awesome. We’re in the same boat.”

But for Gundy, like many others, the line of Pickens’ address that stood out was “I don’t buy green bananas.”

“I don’t like to buy green bananas myself,” Gundy said. “You can buy them when they’re ripe then if they start to get a little brown, they’re still good, and what else can you do with them? You make banana bread or banana pudding. So, I’m with him on that.

“I thought he put out a great statement, and I thought it was pretty cool for everybody. Kinda his state of the union. That’s tradition for him and hopefully we’ll be doing that for 10 more years.”

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