Notes and Thoughts on Mike Gundy’s Pre-West Virginia Press Conference

Mike Gundy recapped Bedlam 2018, talked snowflakes (of course) and previewed the West Virginia game this weekend in Stillwater, OSU’s last home game of the year.

• “Pretty familiar with West Virginia … 12 and 13 and 8 make a lot of plays for them. We’ll certainly have our hands full with these guys. We’ll need a great week of work.”

• Players are in different worlds so he didn’t really have to talk them out of a Bedlam hangover. They just don’t care as much as we maybe think they do. “These guys have practiced well all year.”

• Offensive line was really good in Bedlam. “Chuba ran hard and gave us some gas. Taylor was fantastic.” Kyler is quicker live than what Gundy thought.

• They’ll find out tomorrow what frame of mind Ammendola is in. Has to get his mind clear and get back to where he was earlier in the season.

• “Couple of young guys” and Hockett would be the backups behind Ammendola.

• Wasn’t a “soft or light blow” that Chuba took that caused him to fumble.

• Planning on redshirting Kanion Williams.

• Said it will be different to shut somebody’s season down like Kanion after he’s played recently. But long-term it’s the right decision. Said if he put his foot down, OSU would play him.

• Thabo “hasn’t done much for us.” Said he wants to go somewhere he can get on the field more. Been great for OSU and done everything OSU has asked him to do. Partly due to the new defensive scheme. Also have some young safeties who might be better.

• Talked about snowflakes and Gen Z.

• Said his sons were riding on the bus back to Stillwater and his 14-year-old was “giving him an earful” about all the mistakes OSU made. His 14-year-old also said if Corn had one more year he might be really good.

• Said it’s awesome for Corn. They stuck with him and believed in him. “We couldn’t be any more proud of him.”

• “Corndog’s a salt of the earth, blue collar, small, West Texas kid. Probably raised a little differently than some kids these days.” Lauded the values his mom and dad instilled in him.

• Joked that he plowed the field for Tylan Wallace’s Biletnikoff campaign.

• Corn getting better at throws to Tylan. “Obviously Tylan is a good player.” Developing speed and acceleration running through deep balls.

• James Washington was at practice on Sunday night.

• Preseason, he didn’t think Tylan would be a Biletnikoff semifinalist.

• Doesn’t read email, not a fan of social media. So somebody had to put Tylan’s stats in front of him.

• “What’s the next (Biletnikoff) cut? I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be in that cut?” Did not see this coming to start the year. Tough, competitive, unselfish. “He’ll go block too.” Tylan is the opposite of soft, entitled and snowflakes.

• “I worry about everything all the time.”

• Expects coaches to do their job, do it the right way and be enthusiastic about it. “Supposed to be mature, supposed to be leaders.”

• “You don’t take things personal, and you do your job and that’s what you get paid to do. And if we weren’t paying you, you should want to do it anyway.” Said it’s a “joke” coaches get paid to do this.

• Rudolph sent Gundy some interview with Tom Brady on Sunday night. Said there’s a lot to learn about life, work habits etc. from TB12.

• Corn made “a lot of throws in that game.”

• Gundy has not addressed the final throw of the game with Corn yet. Saw him on Monday morning but didn’t talk about the game. Talked about other things. “Life’s going to be good for him based on his temperament and the way he sees the world.”

• Corn has 750-800 reps. Said it takes 1,500-2,000 to get really comfortable. Said he’s 3/4 of the way there. ?

• If you’re going to be a vocal leader then you have to be willing to be uncomfortable all the time. Have to lead all the time. If you’re not willing to lead all the time, then you can’t do it.

• Had some guys step up and lead before Bedlam but won’t disclose them because they haven’t been doing it for a very long time.

• “It would be nice to have two good coaching plans back to back and kids play hard for two games … that would fire me up.” Disregarded a bowl game motivating them.

• No question that exposure and marketability is important for football team and the university. “Somebody told me this morning our ratings were really high.”

• Said Justice is fine. Got x-rays, cat scan etc. Took a monster hit.

• Tyron is trying to lead. “He’s got to decide if he’s going to use english or actually cajun when he communicates so everybody’s on the same page. I mean that in a good way. I love Tyron. He’s awesome. He competed in that game. Game wasn’t too big for him. He said throw it to me and I’ll go, I’ll block, I’ll run, I’ll hurdle people.”

• Used to worry about hurdling players but likes it now because it energizes the team.

• If teams want to roll and protect against 2 all the time, then they’ll throw it elsewhere.

• Defense has done a better job of being in proximity in coverage. “Everybody in here knows if we have a number of dumb penalties our chances of winning go down drastically.”

• WVU likes to see if you have an answer for WVU’s defense having one more than you have in protection.

• Doesn’t get frustrated during games except for penalties and bad coaching plans.

• Said Darrion Daniels will probably apply for the NFL Draft.