Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowboy Football Report, March 28
March 28, 2014 | Cowboy Football
March 28, 2014
STILLWATER – Dressed in full pads, the Oklahoma State football team held its seventh practice of spring ball Friday at the Sherman E. Smith Training Facility. Former Cowboy cornerback Justin Gilbert, who was a Jim Thorpe Award finalist and All-American last season, took in the practice from the sidelines, as well as nearly 150 high school coaches who were attending the 2014 OSU Coaches Clinic. After the approximately two and a half hour-long session, Gilbert and head coach Mike Gundy shared their thoughts:
Former OSU Cornerback Justin Gilbert
On if it was the right decision to return for his senior season:
"Oh yeah, I knew I made the right decision coming back, because I didn't have the year that I wanted to have my junior year. To come back and be around these guys that I came in with – I knew the heart that they have to go out every day and play on Saturday for each other. That's just something that I wanted to continue to be around. Coming back for another year, it couldn't hurt me, it could only do me right."
On where he's at in the draft process:
"Monday I'm leaving to go to St. Louis for a couple of days, and then I go to Detroit. I think I'm off next week until Thursday, and then I'm going to Minnesota or somewhere. I know I have Minnesota, St. Louis, New York Jets – there's a couple of teams I'm lined up to go visit. Right now it's just me visiting teams and interacting with those coaches and GMs."
On what fans should expect from Kevin Peterson next season:
"We always joke around, and I think he's going to try to compare himself to me and the way that I played last year. He's very capable of doing that. Also, Ashton Lampkin and others, those guys are big guys, big corners who have that athletic ability to make a play on the ball and put the team in a better situation. I don't think, with me leaving, we're going to lose much because of those guys. I think they'll do well."
On his expectations for Oklahoma State next season:
"I'm hoping for the best. I know we have a lot of talent. A lot of talent and a lot of young talent people don't know about, so I think it will be a lot better than what people think is going to happen."
On young players who could step up that people don't know about:
"Guys who didn't really make too many plays last year that people don't know about are probably (Brandon) Sheperd, Marcell (Ateman) and I think (Ra'Shaad) Samples. He can make a lot of plays."
Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy
On if it was a good practice to close the week:
“It really was. We had a lot of high school coaches here with our clinic and our players continue to work hard and we had some guys show up. Tyreek Hill made a few plays today running the ball. Sam Wren made some plays on defense. Tre Flowers made a couple plays – one of our young safeties. I thought that (Ashton) Lampkin had a good day at the corner spot and I really thought that our second team offensive line, who are mainly new guys, faired pretty well today in pass protection. They have a real challenge against our defensive front, who's the one area where we're pretty mature as a team. I thought that they had a good day. J.W. (Walsh) ran the ball effectively. Daxx (Garman) had a nice day throwing the ball. (Mason) Rudolph faired pretty well. He still continues to make mistakes just based on youth. I thought Rennie Childs ran the football well today. So overall we had a good day. The fourth day of the week is at times a little bit of a strain on them just from the wear and tear, because we go pads in the spring, but it was a good practice.”
On Justin Gilbert making a good decision playing his senior season at OSU:
“Well there's no question. Justin did not have a very good junior season. As I've said before, I think he was influenced by outside sources and I'm just elated about him coming back and listening to the people that could really help him with his career, and worked hard and kept his mouth shut and obviously it's going to pay great dividends for him. The guy's going to be a top-six, top-eight, top-10, top-12 pick; I don't know somewhere way up there – a first rounder. He's a true success story. Just a quarterback from Huntsville that got swapped over to defense and ended up being a first-round pick.”
On young corners learning from Gilbert:
“I think that anytime that you're playing the same position as a player that has a chance to play in the NFL someday, it'd be really hard to not learn something. More so, our team in general has seen what's happened to him and the advantage of coming back and finishing school, getting his head on straight and performing and what it's done with his career, because they all have a dream someday of doing the same thing that he has a chance to do this month.”
On the OSU Coaches Clinic:
“As I had mentioned yesterday, that's part of building tradition here in football. We've been fortunate enough to win. We have good players here. Players like being here, but we have to have something to attract the other aspects of what it takes to be a successful football program, which is the coaches that have to have a high level of interest to come and be a part of our program. Eventually we want to recruit their players. From that standpoint, it ends up being a sales business. They get a chance to come here and see how we take care of our players. They see our facilities. They spend time with our coaches and it makes them want to be a part of our program, so it's really important and we had really good numbers today and have had some great feedback from our high school coaches that have visited campus.”
