The Rundown: Gundy Talks Injuries, Open Week in Big 12 Teleconference

Mike Gundy’s only media availability in this open week comes via the Big 12’s weekly Monday teleconference.

Oklahoma State’s coach answered a handful of questions from local and national media heading into OSU’s bye week before a highly anticipated Bedlam matchup. Here is what Gundy said.

On what game days are like without recruits being on campus

“It’s all football now. The majority of it prior to us going out for warmups has always been recruiting. It’s unusual. It’s the first time it’s been that way for me in 31 years. It’s just all football now. No conversations on the field or in the facility before the game.”

On Big 12 defenses catching up to offenses

“It’s a cycle. It goes this way in football. Offenses got way ahead with schemes, RPO concepts, playing fast, attacking down the field vertically and then great quarterback play. Defenses have rallied and come up with answers for what offenses were doing. The majority of quarterbacks in this league are young with the exception of Texas.”

On injuries

“We should know a lot more on Wednesday. We had five, six, seven guys that didn’t practice last week and some of them played and some of them didn’t. Hopefully we’ll get these guys back in the middle or the end of the week so we can get them ready to play next week.”

On if the K-State game was the Texas game in reverse where K-State got a lot of yards, but OSU got key turnovers

“Not quite as bad as our turnovers in the Texas game, but it’s been interesting this year, teams that make the mistakes are the ones losing, moreso this year than ever. It’s not necessarily been teams that just dominate and win a game. The parity in this league is just through the roof.

“When you have a lot of parity in your league or two teams are playing each other that are very similar, then it comes down to special teams and turnovers most of the time. That’s what’s happened to us this year. If you just look around, it’s happening to most of the other teams.”

On Notre Dame students storming the field and what he does with players during the bye week

“I didn’t see it. I heard about it. I’m guessing there’s some things in life we can’t control, and the student body was excited about their win. I’m sure their medical people up there weren’t real excited.

“We do the same thing we’ve done. When we have an open date, we’re gonna work during the week, and then we’re gonna let them have some time during the weekend. That’s what we’ve done here for 15 years. At times, I have to look at things. I’m gonna spend some time with my kids this weekend, so I don’t feel comfortable telling our players they can’t do anything and spend some time with their family.”

On what the team will focus on during practice after reviewing Saturday’s film

“In open weeks, we’ll get about half a day of practice on fundamentals and basic football techniques. We’ll work a little bit on the upcoming opponent in the middle to latter part of the week. Then we’ll get the young guys, that haven’t gotten as many reps on game day, we’ll get them a lot of work so we can use it as a developmental week.”

On Josh Sills playing at left tackle Saturday after playing left guard most of the year

“He’s playing OK. He can play better. He knows that. But, again, he was thrown into the fire in the middle of the game last week, and then we had what would be two real practices last week then we go play a game. Those aren’t positions where you just jump out there and have as much success as what people would think because your stance is different, your weight balance and your stance is different. Then your footwork is different being on the edge than it is inside.”

On Brennan Presley

“He made a big play. He took the end-around. We had an unblocked guy that he was able to kinda stutter-step and outrun around the corner and kind of weave his way in the end zone. That’s the reason that we signed him. We watched him do that in high school for years and have tremendous success and be a very, very productive football player when he had the ball in his hands. Hopefully, we got more of that to come over the next few years.”

On Tylan Wallace playing on the hands team Saturday after not playing all game

“He’s been good. The ones that have come to us this year, he’s made those plays. That’s not as easy a job as some people outside of the game would think it is. It’s an extremely pressure-packed, difficult job. We have other guys that have really good hands, but we don’t have other guys that have the experience he has.”

On waiting until guys are fully healthy to use them

“People look at college football different than maybe I do as a coach or we do as a coaching staff. It’s not worth risking a young man’s career or future injury for a younger player that is not ready to play to try to find a way to win a game. We have enough confidence in our culture, our organization, our structure and what we’re trying to accomplish here.

“You can be faced with these situations two ways, you have discipline in your organization, and if you have players that aren’t disciplined with the structure and the accountability in this organization, then they might not play in a game. The same thing can be injury-wise, if we don’t have a player that’s ready to play, and he’s not comfortable, we will have that discussion with them.

“In this last week, Chuba [Hubbard] didn’t practice all week. LD [Brown] practiced very little. We had several other guys that didn’t practice much at all and played some in the game. When we get to game day, if they don’t feel like that they can play, and they’re not comfortable, then there’s some instability mentally with the football player. We don’t want any instability mentally with our football players playing on the field as highly competitive games we play. We have to take into account the situation and the personal wellbeing of a player more so than just no matter what it has to be put a guy out there to try to win a game at all costs. That’s just not what we believe in here in our organization.”