Oklahoma State University Athletics
Gundy, Cowboys Look Ahead To UTSA
September 02, 2013 | Cowboy Football
Sep 2, 2013
STILLWATER - Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy and selected members of the team visited with the media on Monday in Boone Pickens Stadium. Their comments:
Coach Mike Gundy
Opening statement:
"Obviously we were pleased with our first win. There were a number of things we need to improve in. I think everyone is aware of those areas. We will start to prepare for UTSA today and get back to practice tomorrow. We need to just continue to get better because we have a ways to go. I was pleased with our results from Saturday and I'm excited to get back out there tomorrow."
On his best moment with UTSA Coach Larry Coker:
"We've had so many of them. I have always enjoyed being around Coach. I think he is a very intelligent coach and he is a great person with great people skills. As a player, I enjoyed his approach to certain plays. He kept the game simple and as a player I really enjoyed that."
On keeping J.W. Walsh in the game:
"I think he just brought a spark to our team. I have to make that decision because that's what they pay us to do. I just felt like there was a lift to the team once he came in the game. The first time or two we weren't as successful as we wanted. We had opportunities. They were schemes where we should have been successful. The schemes that we played were new and played to his advantage. The schemes that we were running were new and I don't know if Mississippi State was ready for them."
On running the read option out of the diamond formation:
Coach Yurcich brought that with him. He's had a background in it. They started working on it in the spring and continued to work on it this summer. We felt it would give us an advantage in this first game where we needed a slight advantage."
On whether it's exciting to hear people talk about the defense:
"No question and deservedly so. It's interesting to see the response from friends and family and I just tell them it's fine to win on defense once in a while. When you don't play as well, people tell you that you can't win in the long run because your defense is not good enough. When they play well people then start to blame the offense, but we agree with that. We are just an average offense right now. Specifically, we need to work on our schemes and production. Some of our production was limited due to penalties and we will work on that."
On playing away from home again:
"We hope the maturity of our team will come out this week. I think all the big games we have played in the last five years really helped this past week. We've been in this situation before, where the other team is putting all their effort into this game. So we have to be mature in our preparation this week and we need to go down there and play the game we play."
Offensive Coordinator Mike Yurcich
On the offense's slow start against Mississippi State
"Too many self-destructive things occurred, such as penalties and silly mistakes. Those were recurring themes, unfortunately, and it's hard to get a rhythm going when you keep shooting yourself in the foot. It was the little things, and we know that. We just have to work on getting into a rhythm earlier in the game."
On the effectiveness of the zone read out of the three-back formation
"We installed that last spring. It was effective back then, so we continued to work at it. We studied tape of the San Francisco 49ers, who ran it well with Colin Kaepernick. We tried to grab some film from that. They ran some of those exact plays out of that formation, so we just looked at a lot of their tape."
On the offensive line's performance
"They played hard and did so for 60 minutes. We were able increase the tempo, and our guys responded to that. It was a great job by them."
On UTSA's defense
"They use a four-man front and play a lot of quarters coverage. They use schemes similar to what we do here. They're very sound, and they line up well. They're never misaligned, and that's one of the first things we noticed on film. Lining up correctly is extremely important on the defensive end."
Defensive Coordinator Glenn Spencer
On where the defense can improve despite Saturday's impressive performance
"On those first couple drives, there was a lot. We had major issues with discipline, gap control and leverage on the ball. It didn't take long in the film session to get everyone's attention and make them realize how fine the line is between playing well and not playing well on defense. If we're just a little off, big plays can happen. There was plenty to get on to them about."
On the aggressiveness of the defense and the pressure they caused
"There were times where we executed well. I thought we did a really good job in crucial situations of stopping the run. I thought we affected the quarterback, which doesn't necessarily mean a sack every time, but I think our front seven, when we sent them, did a good job of affecting the quarterback. I thought our secondary made nice breaks on the ball in crucial situations."
On Caleb Lavey winning Big 12 Player of the Week
"Good for him. If you know Caleb like I know him, he shrugs that off like any other time he hears someone talk about him. That's why he's such a great leader. He realizes in two weeks they could be saying something totally different about him, and that's what I love about the kid. "
On what he's seen from UTSA's offense
"They won eight games last year. They had a good showing on Saturday, beating New Mexico on the road. It all starts with their quarterback. He has a very quick release. No. 1 is a slot receiver, but he's also the kind of guy who they just want to get the ball in his hands. They'll get him in the backfield at some times, too. UTSA recruited the San Antonio area really well two years ago, and now those guys are upperclassmen. They have an experienced football team, and they know how to win games. Coach Coker has those guys believing they can win, so it probably wasn't a shock for them to beat New Mexico."
Quarterback J.W. Walsh
On the opportunity to be the starting quarterback
"Any time you get a chance to get out there and go play with your teammates is always fun and exciting. I think the best part is being able to put in the work in the offseason and to be able to go out and put that to the test is always exciting."
On staying ready to go in at any time
"Preparing for Mississippi State and for the season, we knew going in how the reps were going to go and so forth. So going into the game, I've been preparing like I was one play away from going into the game no matter what. To go out and execute the plays was fun."
On what he worked on during the offseason
"Just being able to play fast, be able to slow down the game in my head and execute the plays is the most important thing. That's what I worked on the most-- being able to see the plays when I'm not on the field, see how it's going to break down and into what different coverages while playing fast and smart."
On running the ball more on Saturday
"Any time you have something that's working, you never want to go away from that. Use what's working and attack what you see with the defense, and that's what we did Saturday. I feel like we'll be able to build on that and move on and expand on our offense going forward. It's whatever coach wants to call, and we're going to go execute those plays. It was good to see that we were able to run the ball, and we'll look to expand on that."
On leading the Big 12 in rushing
"I didn't know that. That's cool. The only title I want to have at the end of the season is Big 12 champs. I couldn't care less about the rest of that."
Linebacker Caleb Lavey
On playing Mississippi State
"It was fun. It was good to get to play a smash-mouth SEC team. It's something that I was more used to in high school. We usually don't see it in the Big 12, and it was a lot of fun to have something out of the ordinary for us, and the defense took advantage."
On UTSA
"The thing about the season now is that you have to know about the team in two days. I'm sure the coaches already have their game plan going, and I'm just excited to learn about UTSA."
On the defense's performance
"It was satisfying. I really wish we would have held them to zero points, but we really haven't earned any recognition yet. We still have a lot of games ahead of us. We just need to stay level-headed, humble and excited for each game."
On winning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week
"I was glad to hear it this morning. It's pretty cool, and I'm very honored. At the same time, when you're playing week in and week out, you kind of have to move on from Mississippi State and look forward to UTSA."
Wide Receiver Jhajuan Seales
On his first career start against Mississippi State
"It felt great. I thought the environment was great for my first game to plan in. We came together as a team and really executed well to win the game. It was a great feeling to work off some great team chemistry."
On the offense's progression throughout the game
"We were just getting used to the different looks we were getting on defense. After we went to the locker room, we were really able to execute and wear down the defense."
On his performance
"I think I did okay. It was my first game, and I think I got all the jitters out of my system and really got accustomed to the game. I really loved it. I'm looking forward to our next opponent."
Center Jake Jenkins
On the offensive line's performance
"We played well this week. We had a rough start at the beginning, but we made some adjustments at the half and had a good second half. We had a pretty good game this week."
On losing Devin Davis
"It's hard to replace Devin. Coach Wickline always recruits guys and brings guys in that can fill a position at any time. With Devin going out, it wasn't easy, but it was easy player-wise to transform players into other places. We brought Travis Cross in and brought Parker Graham back into positions they've played. They were comfortable with their positions and were able to fill in."
On success against the Mississippi State defensive line
"They were a good defensive line. I'm not going to take anything away from them, but it's always a good sense of accomplishment that we did that against an SEC defense. The Big 12 isn't always seen as the more physical, powerful conference, so it was good to be able to do that and show people that we are that physical."
On success at protecting the quarterback
"We do film, we do practice and we're constantly watching what we do wrong and what we do right. We're constantly correcting. It also helps that we have some scrambling quarterbacks back there that if they do see pressure, they're allowed to break contain, make a play for plus yardage and keep from getting sacked. We work hard and that's one of the first things we do every day in practice is pass rush."
Running Back Jeremy Smith
On how team felt after victory against Mississippi State
"We all felt pretty good that we got a win against an SEC team. Mississippi State was a great defensive team and had a pretty good offense. It was all about us going into this week. The way we prepared, we prepared pretty well. We had a little bit of a slow start, but we got it going and came away with a W."
On how expectations differ from Mississippi State to UTSA
"They just got a win against New Mexico, which is a pretty good team. They went 8-5 last year, so they're a good team. I mean, you can't count anyone out. It's a game at a time. As long as we approach it like that, we'll win every week."
On how OSU reacted to its slow start against Mississippi State
"Sometimes that happens, but you can't let that get you down. You have to keep your mind in the game and make sure you are staying with your coach and get those corrections so you can go out there and make better plays. We pretty much did that. We went into halftime, and everyone was calm, laughing around. We knew we were going to go out there and take care of business, and we did."
Safety Shamiel Gary
On his performance against Mississippi State and where he feels he's improved
"Just being more comfortable and having another year under my belt helped. Also, I had been preparing since the spring, through the summer and two-a-days. I just feel more confident in my ability and more confident in knowing where everyone on the defense will be."
On the defense's performance and what we can expect moving forward
"Everybody had a chip on their shoulder. We know how we can play. We think that every game is a stepping stone toward how we're going to play for the rest of the year."
On Lyndell Johnson moving back to safety and the competition for playing time
"Competition always pushes you, but at the same time, I already had a chip on my shoulder from the year before, so I had a lot of motivation. Going into the spring, I knew that I had to be better and more confident. Then when they said he was moving to safety, I knew that I had to step up even more."
Defensive tackle James Castleman
On the defensive performance against Mississippi State
"I was really happy with the way that we all played as a whole. Coaches were hitting on it that we really need to play together as a team, love one another, and play as a family. I think that we did that pretty well."
On what the defense needs to do to continue the strong play moving forward:
"We just need to keep playing with one another, keep playing as a family, keep playing hard, and keep doing what is asked of us from our coaches."
On what changed for the defense after struggling for the first couple of drives:
"Coach and a couple of players came at us and gave a little speech about how we needed to work hard, we need to stop this and we can't let them do this. The intensity that they brought just spread throughout the rest of the defense. I feel like that's what stopped it."
