Notes on Mike Gundy’s Baylor Press Conference

Oklahoma State is back at it this week after a week off, and Mike Gundy had plenty to say about the OU-Iowa State game, his own team’s health and what lies ahead against Baylor.

• Players took the weekend off and practiced for an hour on Sunday night. “We didn’t practice enough to talk about.” Watched Baylor film and are back into a normal routine now.

• Didn’t pay attention to any of Baylor’s first three games. Only looked at the two Big 12 games.

• Said he told everyone a year ago he’s “way too old for coach’s talk.” Said the good QB play in the Big 12 has created more parity than ever. Said where there’s inexperience, Big 12 teams are running their QBs which creates issues.

• “We don’t have a lot of margin for error right now.”

• Said four things that can sway a game in the Big 12: turnovers, special teams play, QB play and injuries. Have to manage your injuries based on what “gives us the best chance for success.” Said it may not be what we can draw on the board (i.e. the best plays), but it may be what we can execute on Saturday (i.e. your actual personnel).

• “It’s easier to get into the playoff if you’re undefeated.” Said the CFP committee should view the Big 12 differently this year. “If (CFP committee chairman) Kirby (Hocutt) is worth his salt at all, he should get that accomplished.”

• Said winning the B12 is going to be about whether you can keep your team focused during the week, get the right players healthy and get good special teams play and QB play on Saturdays.

• Said Baylor coach Matt Rhule doesn’t say a lot in coaches meetings. ?

• Rhule is “obviously a very capable coach.”

• Confident that Matt Ammendola will be fine. Said he identified what the issues were and thinks he has them solved. “We have confidence in him, we’re going to send him out there.” Talked about “the life you live as a kicker.”

• Said his assistant has his computer on “some website, there’s news all over it” — said he read what Nick Saban said about the media feeding his team rat poison. “If you read and listen to enough things out there and it affects your preparation during the week, essentially you’ve been poisoned, and you get a chance to get real sick and that sickness is you can lose.”

• Can’t hide players from social media and exposure. Can only hope that they understand importance of preparation and not what somebody is saying about them outside the program, good or bad.

• Said he had to wean himself off what was written or said about him earlier in his career and there will probably be a time in the future. “It can turn a full 360, and I can become a coach that people doubt again.” Said that’s why he works hard at farming. “May have to do it again someday.”

• People are not patient — they want to win right now and they want to win all the time. “Here at Oklahoma State, we’ve essentially created a monster over the last 6-8 years. You have to feed it. You feed it by playing well and winning games. We believe in a lot of things outside of that, but I don’t know that the public buys into that part of it.” (by “that part of it” he meant the stuff that isn’t winning games)

• Said the downtime during the bye week was “fairly consistent” with what they’ve done over the past couple of years.

• Addressed no carries for backup RBs. Said Justice is playing well, and if he’s not fatigued they need him in the game because he can “change a game” at this point in his career.

• Said Gundy did not expect Justice to finish last year the way he did after what he did in the first 3-4 games (fumbles at Baylor etc.) Said he was able to overcome outside things because of maturity and intelligence. He’s come “further than I would have thought in one calendar year.”

• Gundy said he’s smarter than he was 6-8 years ago. Understands importance of developing young men. “Successful young men in society.” If Gundy does something, it’s an example to his players. Apparently something happened at his son’s game against Lawton over the weekend where somebody came up to talk to him and he kind of brought him in under his wing because of some lousy stuff that had happened to the kid in his life.

“Part of the issues we’re having in this country right now, people don’t understand taking care of other people. I’m obligated to do that based on him wanting to visit with me.” Going to try and keep him involved in the program.

Update: Here are some photos of Gundy and the kid. According to Zach Lancaster, his mother passed away recently.

• Physically the male body develops until 26-28. “As most of the women in this country know, for men, they never mature mentally until they’re probably 50.” Was talking about Justice’s body developing (I think?)

• Said one of the things OSU has going for it is that its stars are very humble. Reiterated that Justice never says a word because he’s a humble kid.

• Said if you RPO with your QB you “almost get a full man advantage.” Said they don’t like to run Mason a lot but they have to sometimes if Justice is going to get chased down from the backside. Said media members can predict this in the future and everybody will think, “damn, that guy’s pretty smart … I thought he was just a sportswriter.”

• Said DQ Osborne has been terrific. “Never heard him talk. Never says a word.” Says NFL scouts have been asking about him a lot. “If you looked at him or saw him a year ago, you wouldn’t think that would be something any NFL team would ask about.”

• Tyron’s time will be increased more as they go. Said him not touching the ball didn’t have anything to do with the suspension. It’s been based on looks teams have been giving OSU. Said Washington was in the game 20 more plays against Tech than he would have liked but said “we have faith in (Johnson) to make plays.”

• Tech’s defensive coordinator made some really good calls in the red zone. Said the red zone is an issue they have to manage as best they can. “Becomes a numbers game and a space game.” Said OSU is not a great power football team. “We have to score more touchdowns down in there if we’re going to win these games.”

• On red zone probz: Identify problem, find out why it was a problem, come up with 3-4 solutions, pick some and work those and live with them. “Then on Saturday you call it.”

• Said he visited with Les Miles but hasn’t listened to the podcast because he doesn’t “know how to get to all that.”

• Miles would take over OSU plays when OSU got to the 5-yard-line even though Gundy was offensive coordinator.

• Said everybody had input on OSU’s red zone issues. “You don’t get a lot of input when it’s 3rd and 12 on the 30.” Everybody is adding what they think we need to do.

• “I’m going to guess (Les) doesn’t have anything to do with the technology for a podcast.”

• Les is busier now than as a head coach. Gundy said, “Have you thought about trying farming?” Gundy said Miles wants to coach again “bad.”

• Didn’t watch much of OU-Iowa State. “I didn’t see the last drive, really.” Said Joel Lanning playing linebacker and QB is “awesome.” Said he wanted to reach out via social media to commend the kid for what he did but didn’t because it’s tied in to Bedlam.