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

EUGENE, Oregon — The biggest loss of the Mike Gundy era (and almost any era of OSU football) took place Saturday in the Pacific Northwest.

Oklahoma State fell to No. 6 Oregon 69-3. Gundy met with a small group of reporters who made the trip after the game. Here are five things he said. A video of his full news conference is below.

1. The Difficulty of Replicating the Ducks’ Speed

The final score of Saturday’s game isn’t deceitful; the Ducks were the more talented team in Saturday’s game.

Both strength and speed appeared to be very much in Oregon’s advantage. Gundy was asked if it was difficult to replicate that speed in practice.

“Well it’s difficult,” Gundy said. “They’ve got skill guys. There’s times defensively we were out of place, and there’s times they just ran away from us, that we were there, but they just ran away from us.

“So as coaches, we have to evaluate that. We have to look and say, was it the concept, or are they, you know, they have skilled players, and were we in position? And I know that some of both, just from the naked eye, watching it in the game. There’s times that we’re in position, they just ran away from us.”

2. On the State of the Program

Five years ago, OSU climbed as high as No. 5 in the AP Poll. That feels more like 15 years ago.

Gundy was asked how he wraps his head around where the program is after Saturday’s result.

“We still have some places where we’re young,” Gundy said. “To be honest with you, we have a lot of new guys, and we’re still working together from a staff standpoint and players standpoint, so I don’t know that I necessarily have to do that. What I think is important for our staff now is next week’s practice and then being able to look at, OK, here’s what we did wrong as coaches, and then here’s where we need to improve as players. And then some of it could be a skill set. We have to look at all three of those things. “

3. ‘I Think They’ll Practice Well This Week’

Speaking of next week’s practice, the Cowboys will have to pick themselves off the mat over the next two weeks and get back in the proverbial saddle.

With all the new faces on the team, I asked Gundy how he thought the team would respond to Saturday’s big loss in practice.

“I think they’ll practice well this week — I really do,” Gundy said. “I’ve been around them since July 28, and I’ve seen how they’ve worked. I think that they’ll come out and they’ll practice hard and, and I think they’ll be excited to get back on the field in two weeks to be honest with you.”

4. Accessing Zane Flores’ Performance

With how poorly every aspect of Saturday’s game went for the Cowboys, it’s hard to initially get a gauge on how redshirt freshman quarterback Zane Flores did in his first start.

It certainly wasn’t spectacular. He completed just 37% of his 19 pass attempts for 67 yards and a pair of pick-sixes (on consecutive plays), but the house was very much burning around him.

“Obviously threw two balls that were intercepted for touchdowns in the second half,” Gundy said. “And so there were a couple times he was late on his throws. We had lineman downfield, and that’s, you know, he’s holding the ball a little bit. It’s that part of being young. We got to coach him out of it. But I know that he competed, and he didn’t seem phased. I mean, it wasn’t like he was flinching, in my opinion, but I got to talk to Coach (Kevin) Johns, and we got to discuss that and kind of see where he was at. But from a distance, I thought he was fine.”

5. On the Bye Week

The Cowboys will have to sit with this taste in their mouths for an extra six days before they’re able to get back on the field on Sept. 19 (a Friday) against Tulsa.

It’s a relatively early open week for the Cowboys. Gundy was asked if he likes where it falls.

“I do now,” Gundy said. “I don’t know anymore. Some people say this one’s too early, but we practiced for four weeks in the summer. So, the timing of it’s fine, after Game 2, Game 3, somewhere in there. But it’ll be good for us now to get back to basic football and reprogram these guys. I’ll have to be able to handle the coaches in the right way because I’m just convinced that we tried to do too much, tried to do so much to give ourselves a chance to win the game that it pushed us into not being able to execute.”