What Was Doug Meacham Like in His First Game Leading the Cowboys?

STILLWATER — On Saturday, Doug Meacham took the sidelines as the interim head coach of his alma mater.

Not just that, he did so replacing a guy he called boss for roughly nine years across two stints. Oh yeah, and the two were briefly teammates at OSU, not to mention the fact that Meacham was a grad assistant during the end of former coach Mike Gundy’s playing career.

It would have been understandable for the man to feel a lot of emotions.

“I don’t know, not any different really to me,” Meacham said when asked to name some of those emotions.

Well, alright, so much for that.

“Coaching here in general is an honor because I played here and coached here before,” Meacham said. “I don’t think it’s really different for me. I kind of let it slip a few times. I had to communicate to the referees. I’ve never done that before. But, pretty much, it wasn’t that much different to me. It was fun being down on the sidelines.”

Well, at least Meacham isn’t a complete robot when it comes to his emotions. He also seems to like using the word “fun.”

Maybe it’s better to let others talk for him.

“I was so happy Doug got the interim role because he bleeds orange,” defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. “And I think he’s the perfect guy for the job. He gave good energy to the whole team.”

High praise considering Grantham’s extensive experience coordinating Power Conference defenses (13 years and counting) and coaching in the NFL (12-plus years). He’s definitely overqualified to serve in an interim capacity himself.

Several players spoke of Meacham’s ability to bring energy to both the practices this week and the sidelines on Saturday.

“He has the will, and that’s really all it’s about,” linebacker Bryan McCoy said. “He got a lot of will in his spirit. He knows how to get us going and what it takes to really bring wins to the table.”

Quarterback Zane Flores said Meacham was his usual self despite the shocking circumstances.

“I mean, coach Meacham has always been a high-energy guy, always wants the offense to have fun,” Flores said. “He’s kinda been himself. It’s been good for us so far.”

Of course, one of the guys who knows Meacham best has to be receiver Sam Jackson, since Oklahoma State’s interim coach successfully recruited him to TCU when he was still a quarterback.

“He’s a sponge, he soaks up everything,” Jackson said. “And like I said earlier, he’s like a baby Gundy.”

There were times during Meacham’s first postgame press conference when he made a comment that sounded a bit like something Gundy might have said.

His comment that “six or seven plays” decide football games these days was so eerily close to one of Gundy’s popular refrains recently that it sounded like Gundy might have been possessing him.

He also made Gundy-esque jokes (intentional or not), starting with his question to media relations, wondering if Oklahoma State was a Pepsi school after he opened a Pepsi while the cameras were rolling, and ending with commentary on the student paper’s crossword puzzle. 

Overall, Meacham expressed positive feelings following the loss, not unlike his former boss.

“I hated that we lost, but it’s a phenomenal building block for the next one,” Meacham said. “I told the kids, just you guys go sulk for an hour or whatever, and then forget about it, and let’s learn from it. Let’s build for the next one. Let’s go to Tucson (Arizona) and get ready to roll.”

Jackson wasn’t asked to directly compare his current head coach and Gundy, but it sounds like he wouldn’t be surprised by some of the similarities.

“He’s been with Gundy before,” Jackson said. “I was with him at TCU. He was with (former TCU coach) Gary Patterson. And I think he’s taking some things from everybody that he’s been with, even his mentor, Mike Leach. … You soak up stuff like that. It’s easy for you to come into situations and just thrive, you know, like, let your let your light shine.

“Meacham has a light, I don’t think he lets it shine a lot, but he has recently, and I think the team is in good spirits because of it.”