Three-Kyle Weave: Can it Get Worse than the Kansas State Loss?

Welcome to this week’s three-Kyle weave where Kyle Porter (me), Kyle Boone and Kyle Cox jam on a variety of topics Mike Gundy and Spencer Sanders. Let’s roll out.

Porter: Who gets the majority of the starts at QB the rest of the year?

Cox: Taylor Cornelius ?

Boone: Corn. But I think Dru and Sanders will both play at some point.

Cox: If they don’t get at least a fair shake then where are we at in society?

Porter: I … think it’s Spencer. I haven’t thought so until this week for two reasons. 1. Pressure is mounting from every side for Gundy to do something and this is probably the easiest thing. 2. #sauces tell me there has been talk of it going down like Mason’s freshman year. That is, he wasn’t ready Week 1 or Week 6 but he will be by Week 9.

Cox: Unless Dru Brown is just bad in practice, why not trot him out against UT? You can still stagger the two and give both the chance to redshirt. Of course that might mean Spencer gets his first start in Norman???

Porter: The narrative of Spencer starting against Texas is so compelling, but I think you have to wait until Baylor. I also think Gundy’s loyalty will tip the scales to one more start for Corndog before the plug is pulled.

Boone: People are going to be camping out with pitchforks outside the West End Zone if Spencer doesn’t at least get a couple series when Texas goes up by six touchdowns on homecoming.

Porter: I’m curious about what stance you guys have on this idea that Gundy has become complacent because he makes so much money. Any spicy takes?

Cox: Mine’s mild-to-medium, far from the spicy. I think that can happen but it’s probably more a product of his tenure, age, etc. And a healthy dash of pride (or stubbornness, depending on which side you are on).

Boone: I think Gundy plays the long game too much and outsmarts himself sometimes. He could withstand several losing seasons at OSU, and he knows it. This season is the perfect example of that. If Gundy was in Kliff’s shoes, for instance, he’d have probably had a succession plan in place to get Sanders in by Week 3. Instead, no guarantee he plays .. and worse, he doesn’t express a lot of grief that OSU stinks.

Porter: I don’t think he’s become complacent as much as he’s just always been complacent on the recruiting front. When you don’t have a QB to cover that up it just appears that you’re complacent everywhere else. Mike Holder on Line 1.

Ironically he won’t do the thing that could help him most.

Cox: Back to the stubbornness.

Maybe it’s not complacency but it’s like Boone said, he’s not acting on any urgency because he knows he’ll have a statue before Barry does.

Boone: Yeah, the complacency lies in recruiting. He’s not good at recruiting, but more notably, he’s never shown much interest in turning OSU into a top-3 recruiting program. He just seems satisfied with grabbing mostly passed over talent and trying to get as much as he can out of them.

Porter: That’s the part that makes me far more frustrated than the seemingly ambivalent pressers following beatings at the hands of 80-year-old men.

Cox: Yeah, I don’t care about how he acts after a game, win or lose. Never have gotten why people do either.

Boone: It’s not necessarily that he’s lax after a loss that’s disturbing — it’s his reaction and the “oh, it’ll be fine, just make some tweaks” response. Everyone knows where the change is needed and he can’t commit to it.

Porter: Was Manhattan the low point of this year? Boone, you were there. Does it get worse than that over the next two months or was that it?

Boone: Manhattan was the low point, because K-State will be the worst loss no matter the rest of the season. Losses to Texas, OU, TCU, WVU are all expected — OSU should’ve won by 2 TDs vs. the Wildcats.

Although if OU stomps OSU by 50 — which is like absolutely on the table — then that might be the lowest of the low.

Porter: OSU will refuse to counter OU’s former Texas HS player of the year with its own. Chuba will pull a Tyreek to make it 60-17.

Cox: I hope it was the low point. I think as more losses pile up, it could get worse. I think getting rolled by Texas without a QB change would be a pretty low point, now that I think about it. Two weeks off and few changes to show for it would further sour the mood.

Porter: What if they play Spencer … and it goes badly? Then what?

Cox: Then OSU stinks. That would be catastrophic from a micro view.

Porter: I’ve thought about the Spencer thing a lot. Probably too much. I told Carson this the other day, but I just think he’s so obviously going to be good — not in a “OSU’s going to win out!” kind of way but in a “you can build on this, you’re going somewhere” way — that it’s going to be hilarious to look back on. Like, it’s so easy for me to envision sitting here four years from now adding “Corn over Sanders” to Gundy’s long list of questionable QB decisions.

Cox: Does Gundy start TC once more just to sort of prove the point that he makes the QB decisions around here? Or does he even care about that? I truly don’t know.

Porter: I think more for the redshirt than anything

Cox: I mean over Brown or Sanders. Maybe Brown stinks, I dunno.

Porter: Then Sanders gets them to a bowl, where Gundy can roll out the red carpet for TC and Mike Yurcich and Andre Ware can fan him with palm branches while people from the PFB comments section pop grapes in his mouth to praise him for sticking around for all five years in the face of a wealth of options to go elsewhere.

That’s unfair to him (obviously) in the same way that stances about Tim Tebow are often unfair to Tim Tebow, but the general narrative has frustrated me.

Boone: Yeah I agree.

Cox: That will definitely happen. But if Spencer gets them to a bowl, do you sit him to keep the redshirt? Maybe you do.

Porter: Depends.

Boone: If they play Spencer and he stinks is definitely the hypothetical that keeps Gundy up at night.

Porter: You’re right about the hypothetical, Boone. Hope is the greatest and most valuable asset.