Oklahoma State University Athletics
Gundy, Oklahoma State Talk TCU
October 22, 2012 | Cowboy Football
Oct. 22, 2012
STILLWATER, Okla. - Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy and selected members of the team visited with the media Monday in Boone Pickens Stadium to preview Saturday's game vs. TCU. Some of their comments:
Head Coach Mike Gundy
Opening statement:
"The information that I gave you last night on J.W. Walsh and Justin Horton is that they probably are not going to play for the rest of the year. You never really know, anything could happen, but as I see it, it is very difficult to come back from the type of injuries that these guys have within the next six weeks."
On the quarterback situation:
"We have Wes Lunt, who has practiced, and we have Clint Chelf. We have enough reps for both of them to get quality work in order for them to play on Saturday. Because we do move so fast in practice, it gives us a chance to get guys enough work. You guys are familiar with Wes. Clint is a lot like J.W. in the way he plays. He throws it and runs it some. That's really where we're at. There's not any other information."
On J.W. Walsh:
"I'm very proud of what J.W. has given our football team. I'm disappointed, for him, that he can't continue to play. He competed on about 70 plays, give or take a few, after the injury. The guy has a very high tolerance of pain. I'm reading a book about Navy SEALs and what they go through to be a SEAL and how much pain they have to endure to continue to move forward. That's what it reminded me of. I'm not trying to make him out to be something he isn't, but people need to realize that the guys who play this game put their body on the line every Saturday and we as coaches and fans need to respect that. We have guys who play with pain, but he gets more attention because he's the quarterback. What he was able to do Saturday after he sustained the injury is pretty impressive. That's a credit to who he is and what he stands for."
On being an unselfish football team:
"I made a point last night after practice that in order for our team to continue to get better, the overall concept is you have to be unselfish football players and do whatever it takes in reason. I made a point that when Wes (Lunt) and Justin (Horton) got hurt, they were unstable. (Walsh) wasn't unstable. He continued to fight. When you're young you have to learn. Football is the greatest game there is for life lessons because there's pain in our lives sometimes, and we have to fight through it."
On the offensive line:
"I thought our offensive line was very physical. We were below average at Kansas. I think they took it as a challenge. They were teasing me all week asking, `Coach do you think we practiced hard enough today?' Coach Wickline does a great job of challenging those guys each week. They know what we expect. Hopefully, we can get them to perform and play at a high level because if we don't in this game then we won't have fun on Saturday."
On the defense:
"Defensively, they were fantastic. Playing defense and coaching defense in the Big 12 is week-to-week. You have to have a good plan, be fresh, active, run to the ball, tackle and be resilient. But we had a number of guys - Daytawion Lowe, Cooper Bassett, Calvin Barnett, Brodrick Brown and Shamiel Gary - who played with a lot of energy, and it was nice to get Lyndell Johnson back."
On TCU:
"Moving forward, this is a good team we are playing. Sometimes records and the overall record may not indicate who we are playing. This is a fast football team. They are giving up about 17 .3 points per game if you take away overtime. Only three yards a rush. They've held their opponent to 26 percent on third downs. They are playing with a new quarterback who is now gaining some new experience and looks comfortable. They've had some success over the years, and they are well coached. This will be a good one. We go head-to-head in recruiting with them a lot. They recruit a number of the same players we do."
On Gary Patterson's defense:
"He's always played in that fast safety, double invert, and they move some guys around. He's actually made a few adjustments, but his concepts have remained the same. They've had success based on speed and running to the ball."
On OSU controlling its own destiny:
"It's easier said than done. I think the interesting concept with our league right now is that we would all agree that Kansas State is ahead of everybody. I think Oklahoma has played pretty well lately. For the rest of us and the way we are playing, we have to limit our mistakes, play with effort and try to stay as healthy as possible. Offensively, it's all about making big plays and defensively it's about forcing turnovers."
Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken
On J.W. Walsh's injury:
"I'm not a medical person, but like we've done with all of our guys who have been injured, we'll go week-to-week and if and when he's ready to play, we'll assess it then. I know he's a tough guy, mentally and physically, and it hurts him to be out, but it's a speed bump."
On what J.W. Walsh's injury means to the quarterback situation:
"Well, last week was Wes Lunt's first full week of working with us. We'll evaluate it and look at Clint and Wes. We worked our offense into using more of an athletic quarterback, so we have to decide if we are going to continue in that direction, or is Wes going to be ready throw the football and give us a chance to win."
On how comfortable the team is with Clint Chelf if Wes Lunt can't play:
"I said in the spring that we have three guys who are pretty good players. I thought they all played well in the spring. The margin wasn't extreme between them - there wasn't a cavernous gap. We just had made decisions on where we thought they were then, and where they could improve. A lot of times you go with the younger guys because they have such a gap where they can improve. I'm confident that we can win with either guy, just like I was confident when it was J.W Walsh."
On how frustrating the amount of injuries is compared to last season:
"You feel for the young men. It's frustrating, but it's part of it. Everybody is banged up, but you just hope that it's in the spots where you have some depth. Last year we were lucky enough to have depth. We lost players last year. Jonathan Rush went down but we had other guys. Hubert Anyiam went down but we had other guys. We're not as deep now, but that's the way it is. Everyone has their problems, but no one really cares. It's frustrating, but that's why we're paid - to figure it out - and that's what we're going to try to do."
Defensive Coordinator Bill Young
On what TCU does offensively:
"I think they're athletic - they have lots of speed. I think that's one of the things they look for in recruiting is speed at all the skill positions. They're much faster than what we've been seeing."
On whether the defense is playing at the desired level:
"We're never going to play as well as we want to play. We are getting better, and I think we're a work in progress and that's our goal. We want to continue to improve and continue to do better. We also want to force more turnovers."
On the balance TCU's offense has:
"They'll throw the ball all over the place, but they also run it awfully well. They do a great job of running the zone read and they have some blocking schemes that give us a lot of difficulty, in addition to throwing the ball well. The thing that concerns us about the passing game is their speedy receivers."
On adjustments made against Iowa State and how they can used against TCU:
"I don't know that we made adjustments as much as our players started doing their jobs and not trying to help the other guy. Once we stayed home and took care of business, it all fell into place. If an individual makes a mistake, we can get him out and coach him up--but if someone else is trying to cover up for the first mistake and makes one of his own, it snowballs. If they just do their own jobs, we can fix it."
Offensive Lineman Lane Taylor
On J.W. Walsh playing three quarters with a season-ending knee injury:
"It says a lot about him. I already knew he was a pretty savvy guy. I didn't even know he was hurt until yesterday. It shocked me when I found out. I saw him icing his knee, and I asked him if he was alright, and he was like 'Yeah, I'm good.' I didn't know it was that serious. It shows how tough he is."
On TCU's triple-overtime loss to Texas Tech last weekend:
"Playing in the Big 12 every week, you have to let the last game go. Whether it's a win or a loss, points don't carry over to the next game."
On the offensive success despite numerous injuries:
"We just have a lot of guys that will make plays. That's what we do all of our recruiting for, and it's good that we can have young guys step in there - guys that don't have much game experience - step in there and play and make big games out of it. That's what we do."
On the offensive line's preparation for different QBs:
"It's not much different week to week. Every week we go out there and we want to keep our quarterback clean, have no sacks, have good run blocking. Not much has changed. We'll definitely make sure to keep the young guy clean. We don't want him to get dinged up again. We'll keep him clean, and we'll keep him healthy."
Running back Joseph Randle
On preparing for TCU:
"We haven't really gotten much into the film yet, but I've watched them on TV and they look pretty good. We'll just watch film and see how we'll attack it."
On J.W. Walsh:
"I was surprised, I had no clue he was hurt in the game. He showed some signs but nothing that showed injury. You have to give him props for playing with an injury that basically ended his season. He played three quarters with it and that shows you what kind of guy he is."
On his mindset knowing that fellow RB Jeremy Smith has been limited:
"I'm ready for whatever. I can hold it down until he can come back and get some more carries. But I'm fine with getting more carries. I got the rock - I think I got it 29 times between catching it and running it - so I'm happy about that."
On his 62-yard run vs. Iowa State:
"We had been talking about it, keep nickel and diming them and then one time it's going to break and then I saw that hole and got it."
Safety Daytawion Lowe
On quarterback J.W. Walsh playing throughout the Iowa State game with an injury:
"That's just football. That's how it happens. The next guy will be ready. I always knew the guy was tough. He's been tough ever since I met him. That's his mentality and that's what he does, so I already had that respect for him. My thoughts about him didn't really change."
On the defense's exceptional effort:
"On that first drive, we came out lackadaisical. We can't do that this week. From the start, we have to do what we did when we finished the game. It helped us out a lot just being out there and seeing what we could do. Now we know what we can do, we can do it and we have to do it."
On what the coaches said after Iowa State's first drive that resulted in a touchdown:
"We gave up big plays. The coaches told us coming into the game that if we didn't give up the big plays, we would stop them. That's exactly what we did. We stopped giving up big plays and we started stopping them."
Linebacker Shaun Lewis
On the defense's performance against Iowa State:
"We really didn't change up a whole lot of things. They had their first couple of plays that worked for them, but we increased our aggressiveness, went out there and had fun."
On building on the exceptional defensive play against Iowa State:
"We just have to always come out aggressive. We want to control the tempo as a defense, which we didn't do that first drive. We can definitely learn from that."
On the defensive plan for TCU:
"We're going to listen to our coaches, watch film and execute the game plan. The coaches do a great job of drawing up a game plan, and if we execute it every week we have a good chance to win."
On the team recording its first interception of the year:
"If you look at the play, the quarterback was on his heels. That all comes from getting pressure on the quarterback. If we can keep doing that and keep making the quarterback feel uncomfortable, we will get more turnovers."
Wide Receiver Josh Stewart
On J.W. Walsh's injury:
"Things happen, and this time they happened to him. It hurts because he's like a brother to me, but then again we have to move on. When Wes Lunt was hurt, it was the same thing. We had to move on. Now that J.W. is hurt, we've got to do the same thing. He'll be fine. He'll recover."
On going against TCU's defense this week:
"We haven't watched much film on them, but once we watch film, see what they like to do, and get a feel for them, we'll get our plan together to face their defense."
On Wes Lunt being back in the starting quarterback position:
"That's why it's a good thing to have so many good quarterbacks. That's what we have. Wes is going to come in and play well. We don't have any worries. Just back to square one."
Wide Receiver Charlie Moore
On Wes Lunt:
"He might be back at 100 percent. We'll see this week. If the coaches decide that he's the starter Saturday, then they're making the decision based on what they've seen from Wes. We have all the trust that he'll be able to run the offense just like he has been."
On the team's wide receivers moving forward despite all of the injuries:
"We're just going to keep growing on what we did last week. The young guys are going to keep getting better. I think Isaiah Anderson is looking healthier this week, so I'm hoping he's back. Other than that, we're just going to keep getting better and keep pushing like we did last week."
On why the wide receivers are so successful:
"We're successful just because of how the offense works as a whole. When you have running backs like Joseph Randle threaten the defense, it opens up holes for us, which allows the quarterbacks to make big plays."
Linebacker Caleb Lavey
On what the defense needs to do against TCU:
"As long as we can swarm to the ball, it's one of the key points in shutting down an offense. We have to assume that TCU is coming in with a chip on its shoulders. We just have to be the first one to bring the hit and bring all the energy into the game and carry it throughout."
On the OSU linebackers:
"The linebacker group is very close. It's like we're brothers. We hang out together outside of football and we hang out together inside of football. We know what each other is thinking on the field. It's a good group of guys that we have."
On OSU's defensive performance against ISU:
"It felt good to get our legs under us and have a good defensive performance. In no way have we arrived and I think everyone on defense is aware of that. We have to continue to push ourselves and get better."
On turnovers:
"I'm happy we got the turnovers. I love turnovers, but the thing is, we still aren't reaching the number of turnovers we got last season. It's just another one of those things that we have to continue to push ourselves."
