What Gundy Lacks in Hysteria He Can Make Up for In Creativity

I have a confession of sorts, I suppose. I have struggled to get overly worked up about the way Mike Gundy has handled his three losses this year. According to some, I believe we are supposed to be outraged about how few fireworks (histrionics? expletives?) are coming from the podium following defeats in which Gundy and his team were favored.

Would it kill him (or harm anything) to show a little more fire or confidence in his or his team’s ability to fix whatever’s wrong in Stillwater, USA right now? No. Will it solve anything? I think there’s a bit of truth in that, but I think the wider opportunity lies in what he does on the field rather than off it.

A question: When is the last time Oklahoma State faked a punt?
Another question: Does Oklahoma State even have punt fake in its playbook?

What has always been true of Oklahoma State is now more true than ever in the post-Rudolph and Washington era. Traditionally speaking (in the modern era), Oklahoma State has had average to above average Big 12 talent. Over the last six years, they rank in the middle of the pack in terms of Big 12 recruiting. OU, Texas, TCU and Baylor are ahead of them. Kansas State, Texas Tech, Kansas and Iowa State are behind them. West Virginia is more or less equal.

They have overachieved because they have gotten fabulous quarterback play. They have generally beaten the teams they’ve had as much or more talent than because of this QB play and because — I really believe this — they’re one of the most well-organized programs in the country (special teams notwithstanding!)

As an aside: The bigger picture question is not necessarily how is Oklahoma State losing with all of this talent? but rather how did they win so much while recruiting at that level to begin with? The answers are above, but I still think the results are kind of remarkable.

What we’ve seen when they’ve played well-organized big boy talent (that is to say, not Texas) — OU, Ole Miss, Baylor under Briles etc. — is that they don’t have the horses to roll with those teams. To Gundy’s credit, OSU has beaten teams that it’s as good as or better than straight up. To Gundy’s stubborn demise, he thinks the same will be true if he plays the exact same way against the OUs and Ole Miss’ of the world.

That’s not how this whole thing works.

The formula for beating more talent with less goes something like this:

1. Get hot early
2. Get some big breaks
3. Empty the Bag O’Tricks

Gundy has refused to do this in big games against more talented OU (and other) teams, and it has resulted in a lot of Ls. Think about all the big-time upsets OSU has had in the Gundy era, games where OSU was a 7-point (or more) underdog. I bet you can name them all in your head.

• Washington in the Cactus Bowl (2015)
• OU in Norman (2014)
• Baylor in Stillwater (2013)
• Mizzou in Columbia (2008)
• Texas Tech in Stillwater (2005)

Fam, that’s the entire list. Now again, this is not to discredit that Oklahoma State has more often than not been a favorite and very rarely been a TD dog or worse (5-21 as a 7-point or worse dog), but it shines a light on the fact that Gundy is reticent to ever pull the liberal levers of trickeration for the sake of snatching wins he shouldn’t be snatching.

When they have, it’s often worked. How did they win that Cactus Bowl? Oh, they had a lineman playing running back. How did they win that 2014 Bedlam game? Oh, a future NFL star returned a punt. These are outside the normal bounds of how Oklahoma State has traditionally won football games.

We think Gundy only goes conservative when he sees one of the Stoops brothers on the opposite sideline, but the reality is that he’s as conservative as they come overall in college football. As risk-averse as anyone in the Big 12.

Here’s what I wrote about this … two years ago.

He’s recruited at a top four level in the Big 12 and has been a top four Big 12 team traditionally. Where the model breaks down is against OU. Or against Baylor in recent years Against teams with far more talent. And Gundy seems to think that he can just maintain the status quo and do what he always does against those teams even though everyone can see that from a talent standpoint OSU is an extreme underdog. [PFB]

The problem now is that OSU’s middling talent doesn’t have an elite QB to lead it to one-possession win after one-possession win. And yet the offense and the team as a whole are still operating as if conservatism is the name of the game.

That’s that part that irks me the most. I’ve thought about this Bill Haisten tweet 25 times since last Saturday. He’s right, and I’m not even talking about the QB position.

#okstate Gundy’s $5 million mission is do whatever is required to win. Whether that involves a QB change or to throw an epic fit on the sideline, he’s obliged to do something now. K-State is playing desperate football. OSU didn’t show up.

— Bill Haisten ?? (@billhaisten) October 13, 2018

Oklahoma State is not emptying the tank to win football games. It is simply pounding its fists and saying that this time — THIS TIME! — it will work. Well it’s not working.

I’ve always thought Gundy’s two worst qualities were clock management and crootin. I think you can throw a lack of what I’ll call team self awareness. Maybe that’s not the right way to say it, but there has to be some realization that if you don’t have the ability to line up 11 on 11 and beat the other side of the ball in a football game, you have to change something to stack the deck in your favor. You have to do something outside the normal way you always do things to tip the scales to your side.

Fakes, trick plays, literally anything that reveals that you’re doing everything in your power to win.

So next time Gundy takes the dais and talks about how he knows what’s wrong and OSU thinks they can fix it to be more competitive in the future, don’t be angry because he’s not yelling and screaming. Be angry because the evidence we have on the field is that they aren’t currently doing “whatever is required” to win college football games on Saturday afternoons.