Oklahoma State University Athletics
Gundy Previews Texas
October 22, 2018 | Cowboy Football
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy met with members of the media Monday morning to discuss the Cowboys' upcoming homecoming game against No. 6/7 Texas at Boone Pickens Stadium. A look at some of his comments:
On the importance of staying in a routine after the bye week:
"We have the day-off policy that we have to follow anyway. In a game week, Monday is the day off. They have heavy academics. It's more difficult to change it and adjust classwork schedules than it is to just stay with the routine."
On Sunday's practice:
"We did a little more team period just because we've already been in team last week, but everything else was the same – special teams, running not as long. Very similar, just a little more team than we had already done."
On the bye week:
"We tried to look back and wanted to identify where we needed to improve – both sides of the ball and really all three phases – and then implement a plan to start that process, get quality reps and introduce Texas. Start them on Texas and try to get it on their mind. We brought them back last night and they had some memory to go back on."
On rotating in new players:
"I think people that say that are being somewhat unrealistic. If there were other guys we thought we needed to look at, we would've already done that. It's not this far in the season – we've been at it for August, September and half of October, so 10 weeks into it. We pretty much know who we have out there and the guys that we're working, trying to get them ready for the next game."
On Texas:
"They are a really talented football team. They have really good players. Seems like they are playing with more confidence at this time. They've got two quarterbacks who they have had success with. They have a couple wideouts that are having good years. Defensively, they are sound. They can run to the football and you are not going to get a lot of freebies on them. They minimize big plays due to their speed and athleticism."
On protecting Cornelius:
"At Kansas State, we protected pretty well. I was concerned with the ends that they had, but I thought we protected pretty well for him. There have been other games where we didn't protect well at all. We have to be careful about trying to get away from what we do and who we are and just try to get better at and minimize those packages."
On protecting Cornelius against Texas:
"You have got to be balanced on offense. We have to protect (Taylor) Cornelius at times. They are going to make plays too. They are good players. They've got good coaches. They are going to make their plays and we will need to be able to make ours. Offensive football is always about taking care of the ball and minimizing negative yardage plays which come from not protecting the quarterback very well during any time in the game. We have to have a good balance and part of that is protecting him."
On Texas' defensive plan:
"I think it's just normal game planning. I'm not sure that the other people we play would be much different than what he brings to the table other than Kansas State. These guys have had different schemes for our style of offense for the past three years. We'll get into games and see things that we haven't seen at times, and I think that Todd Orlando does a nice job of coming up with schemes. It's not any different than what we would do on offense, trying to prepare for them defensively."
On what he hopes the team can improve on in the second half of the season:
"I would like to limit missed assignments. We've had a number of missed assignments that I've talked about in here over the last couple months that we need to reduce. There's different ways to handle that. You condense the packages somewhat. Some of it is related to youth and inexperience. Reducing those numbers gives us the best chance to have success. If you're looking at all three phases, scheme-wise on special teams we've been pretty good. We've had a couple of errors, but otherwise we've been OK. So we'll push forward and polish that … give some guys more reps. Offensively, we've gone into games where we haven't protected very well, then had games where we haven't run blocked really well. We haven't put it together in a while. Defensively, we go through phases where we don't defend the deep ball really well, then we haven't defended the run very well. We really haven't put that together, so I would like to see us do that. That would be a good start."
On the importance of staying in a routine after the bye week:
"We have the day-off policy that we have to follow anyway. In a game week, Monday is the day off. They have heavy academics. It's more difficult to change it and adjust classwork schedules than it is to just stay with the routine."
On Sunday's practice:
"We did a little more team period just because we've already been in team last week, but everything else was the same – special teams, running not as long. Very similar, just a little more team than we had already done."
On the bye week:
"We tried to look back and wanted to identify where we needed to improve – both sides of the ball and really all three phases – and then implement a plan to start that process, get quality reps and introduce Texas. Start them on Texas and try to get it on their mind. We brought them back last night and they had some memory to go back on."
On rotating in new players:
"I think people that say that are being somewhat unrealistic. If there were other guys we thought we needed to look at, we would've already done that. It's not this far in the season – we've been at it for August, September and half of October, so 10 weeks into it. We pretty much know who we have out there and the guys that we're working, trying to get them ready for the next game."
On Texas:
"They are a really talented football team. They have really good players. Seems like they are playing with more confidence at this time. They've got two quarterbacks who they have had success with. They have a couple wideouts that are having good years. Defensively, they are sound. They can run to the football and you are not going to get a lot of freebies on them. They minimize big plays due to their speed and athleticism."
On protecting Cornelius:
"At Kansas State, we protected pretty well. I was concerned with the ends that they had, but I thought we protected pretty well for him. There have been other games where we didn't protect well at all. We have to be careful about trying to get away from what we do and who we are and just try to get better at and minimize those packages."
On protecting Cornelius against Texas:
"You have got to be balanced on offense. We have to protect (Taylor) Cornelius at times. They are going to make plays too. They are good players. They've got good coaches. They are going to make their plays and we will need to be able to make ours. Offensive football is always about taking care of the ball and minimizing negative yardage plays which come from not protecting the quarterback very well during any time in the game. We have to have a good balance and part of that is protecting him."
On Texas' defensive plan:
"I think it's just normal game planning. I'm not sure that the other people we play would be much different than what he brings to the table other than Kansas State. These guys have had different schemes for our style of offense for the past three years. We'll get into games and see things that we haven't seen at times, and I think that Todd Orlando does a nice job of coming up with schemes. It's not any different than what we would do on offense, trying to prepare for them defensively."
On what he hopes the team can improve on in the second half of the season:
"I would like to limit missed assignments. We've had a number of missed assignments that I've talked about in here over the last couple months that we need to reduce. There's different ways to handle that. You condense the packages somewhat. Some of it is related to youth and inexperience. Reducing those numbers gives us the best chance to have success. If you're looking at all three phases, scheme-wise on special teams we've been pretty good. We've had a couple of errors, but otherwise we've been OK. So we'll push forward and polish that … give some guys more reps. Offensively, we've gone into games where we haven't protected very well, then had games where we haven't run blocked really well. We haven't put it together in a while. Defensively, we go through phases where we don't defend the deep ball really well, then we haven't defended the run very well. We really haven't put that together, so I would like to see us do that. That would be a good start."
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