The Top 5 Quotes from Doug Meacham’s Pre-Cincinnati News Conference

STILLWATER — Cowboy alum Doug Meacham will lead the Pokes into their homecoming game this weekend.

Oklahoma State plays Cincinnati at 7 p.m. Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium. Meacham, OSU’s interim coach, met with reporters Monday to give updates on the program. Here are five things he said that stood out.

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1. Midseason Coaching Changes ‘New Normal’

Oklahoma State parting ways with longtime coach Mike Gundy after three games felt somewhat drastic at the time, but it’s turned out to be on par for coaching movement this year.

Just this past weekend, Penn State fired James Franklin and Michigan State axed Jonathan Smith — the latest examples of what’s been a busy midseason coaching carousel.

“It’s the new normal,” Meacham said. “Feels like kind of lighting the candle at both ends, and we gotta worry about getting players, and you’re paying coaches and all that stuff. At some point, it’s, OK, what are we doing? Not really. It’s just the way this business is. It’s a very public profession. You have to do things. It’s a performance industry and you gotta perform. That’s just the way it goes.”

2. Interim Advice Tough to Get in Modern Landscape

That change has obviously thrusted Meacham into this position as the Cowboys’ interim coach.

It’s his first head coaching role, but given the the quickly changing landscape, there are certain aspects of what Meacham is going through that he can’t exactly ask others for advice about.

Meacham does have interim DC Clint Bowen, who was tasked with being Kansas’ interim coach in 2014 when the Jayhawks fired Charlie Weis.

“It’s different now because 4-5 years ago, the landscape that’s occurring today is not what it was five years ago,” Meacham said. “So it’s kind of hard how would you handle these things. Like I said before, Clint Bowen has done this twice at Kansas. So early on, I leaned on him for how he did it. What were some of the problems he had as he moved through it? How did he handle stuff and what would we have done differently had he had another shot at doing that? That kind of thing. He’s helped me a lot. Because he’s done it twice, at his alma mater, which is another layer to do it here, where it probably means the most.”

3. Official Interactions

There was a story Mike Boynton once told where in his early days as a head coach, an assistant turned to him during a game and said, “You know you can call a timeout, right?”

With this being Meacham’s first go at being the head man, he has to be going through some of that, like how he was going to handle his interactions with referees.

A holding call on Bob Schick this past Saturday took a big play off the board, and Meacham was asked about it Monday.

“I think what I’ve realized is all head coaches are super nice pregame, myself included,” Meacham said. “Very cordial, don’t say much, just kind of a mild-mannered human being. And then something occurs like that, and you turn into this whole other guy, and they probably go, ‘Wow, that wasn’t this guy at pregame. I don’t know …’ I’m not gonna comment on it. I just, in my humble opinion, could’ve gone either way with that one. Looked to me like the guy dove at the ball carrier. If he had not have dove, I don’t know that would’ve even been seen as a hold. But that’s just the way it goes.

“That’s football. It’s like going to your son’s little league game and the dad that’s arguing about strikes and balls and stuff. That’s ridiculous. Just move on. That’s part of it.”

4. Playing with Six Offense Linemen

The Cowboys are getting thin at tight end, which led this weekend to a few six-offensive linemen sets.

Redshirt sophomore Gage Stanaland, listed at 6-foot-3, 300 pounds, played a handful of snaps on the end of the line of scrimmage. One of those snaps almost ended in a touchdown when Trent Howland ran 21 yards and was tackled at the 1-yard line (the play the last quote discussed). That play got brought back for a hold.

The Cowboys are down to two available tight ends in redshirt senior Quinton Stewart and redshirt freshman Grayson Brousseau. That has led to the unconventional look.

“Because if we have one sprained ankle there’s a lot of packages we can’t even play and you’re going to waste a lot of practice reps,” Meacham said. “If we could put another guy out there and kinda decrease that opportunity of getting one of the tight ends hurt, we’re doing it for that reason  because if you have a two tight end package, and you practice it 30 reps that week, and one guy sprains an ankle pregame, then you just wasted a lot of time. So I think we’re trying to do that to protect those guys.”

5. The Section 231 Guy

The fans stole the show this past Saturday when three sections filled with people took their tarps off and started waving them above their heads.

It started with one guy and grew quickly. After shouting it out post game, Meacham was still interested in the topic Monday.

“I want to bring up the shirt guy,” Meacham said. “When I saw some of the replay stuff, I realized that’s not a college kid, right? Yeah, he had kind of some stuff I got going on so. But it’s amazing. To see that played back and it’s one guy and then it’s two, then there were two more showing up, then it just went. That was pretty cool. Probably need to get his number, see if he wants to come out for practice, hang out with for a day or something. That was awesome.”

More from Monday

Sam Jackson set to start at QB
Noah Walters goes from UCF student to OSU QB
OSU growing thin at TE
Kick time announced for OSU-Tech