The Top 5 Quotes from Mike Gundy’s Post-Kansas News Conference

STILLWATER — It appears Mike Gundy has turned his ship back in the right direction.

Oklahoma State beat Kansas 39-32 on Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium to sweep the pair of Sunflower State schools that stuck it to the Pokes pretty good last season. Here are the top five quotes from Gundy’s postgame news conference.

South Alabama to Now

It’s hard to imagine this Cowboy team lost to the Sun Belt’s South Alabama 33-7 about a month ago.

That game saw OSU muster just 208 yards of total offense before putting up 554 in Saturday’s win. So, how is that team and this team the same team?

“In South Alabama, we coached poorly and we played poorly,” Gundy said. “You have to be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘Our coaching was awful in that game,’ which didn’t allow our players to play good because we didn’t give them a chance. We couldn’t even get them in the starting gate. We have to identify that and say, ‘OK, we were bad,’ and then tell the players we were bad.

“We apologized. Let’s start over. Give us a chance, and then we’ll start to migrate in the direction we need to be in both sides of the ball scheme-wise, and that’s what we’ve done. … I think it’s just a matter of not pointing the finger and just saying, ‘Hey, we were awful. Didn’t give the players a chance. Let’s figure out a way to give them a chance and move forward.'”

Pounding the Rock

To go with the theme of “how the heck is this the same team from a month ago?” Oklahoma State set a new season-high for rush yards with 218. That bests last weekend’s outing of 174.

In the first four games, OSU averaged 121.8 rushing yards a game on 4.2 yards a carry. In the past two games, OSU has averaged 196 rushing yards a game on 5.0 yards a carry.

Sure, Ollie Gordon is getting the ball more, but that type of improvement doesn’t happen unless the offensive line also starts playing better.

“Our offensive line is playing much better now than we did a month ago,” Gundy said. “We’re not getting negative-yardage plays — for the most part. And Ollie is staying on the chains and running downhill and not dancing, which is what he needs to do. So now we’re working in sync. That’s why we look better.”

Effort

Gundy said a big part of his brief halftime speech involved the Cowboys playing with effort.

The old coach’s cliche of everyone can give effort is probably a cliche for a reason, but with his team down a point heading into the second half, Gundy said he didn’t talk with the team long (just 37 seconds, he said) before letting position coaches make adjustments and do some coaching. The main message he wanted to get across had to do with effort.

“No matter what when we watch the tape on Monday, you need to be able to sit and watch the video and your peers and your teammates are next to you, and you know they’re not cutting their eyes at you because you didn’t play your a– off,” Gundy said. “That’s all I asked. The rest of it, if you make a mistake, I can live with it. But I don’t want anybody cutting their eyes at you because you didn’t play hard. That’s all I asked them to do.”

Nardo’s Adjustments Slow Down KU Offense

Speaking to adjustments, Jason Bean was setting Bryan Nardo’s defense ablaze … but only for a half.

Bean went into the locker room at halftime having completed 76% of his passes for 274 yards and four touchdowns. It was as if he was playing a video game, but the difficulty got turned up in the second half.

The second half saw Bean complete 59% of his passes for 136 yards, a touchdown and a pair of costly interceptions.

Most importantly, Kansas had six passes of 15 or more yards in the first half and just three in the second half.

“Bryan has had answers throughout the season,” Gundy said. “And I tell the coaches this: I just want you to have answers throughout the game. I know the other team might try to counter you, which they should, but if there’s an issue, I need it to get fixed and you need to have answers for it so we don’t get beat by the same thing over and over and over and over and over.

“He came up with answers. He’s always had answers, but you still have to get it to the players and get it on the field and get executed, all while everything is moving fast. He has had answers this year, and he had answers today.”

Gameday Atmosphere ‘Better Than It Ever Has Been’

Despite all the roster turnover from the offseason, and despite OSU dropping a home game to a Sun Belt school, OSU announced this week that it had sold out the remainder of this season’s games.

That came after an offseason that also saw the Cowboys sellout their season ticket allotment for the first time since 2013. Gundy has been vocal after every home game about his appreciation for the Boone Pickens Stadium atmosphere, and that was no different Saturday.

“The crowd was unbelievable again,” Gundy said. “The support, the crowd, students, the gameday atmosphere here is better now than it ever has been since I came here in 1986. This is three or four games in a row where it has just been fantastic out there.”