Oklahoma State University Athletics
Gundy Previews Kansas
September 24, 2018 | Cowboy Football
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy met with members of the media Monday to discuss the Cowboys' upcoming visit to Kansas. Here is a look at some of his comments:
Opening Statement:
"We're back at it. My postgame press conference was pretty accurate. As always, we got everybody back together on Sunday and had a good workout last night. We've got a day off today and then we're working on Kansas and getting ready to roll for the next one."
On the struggles vs. Texas Tech:
"I thought that their gameplan was better than ours in all three phases, and they executed it really well. Then we got out of place in the middle or late-third quarter when we couldn't function on offense, turned the ball over and then it just kind of snowballed late."
On his team's focus last week in practice:
"I'd like to say that there was something, but they had better coaching schemes than we did, so it starts with the coaches. Let's just say we're playing poker and you get a couple of aces to start with, and I get a three and a four – the aces are the coaching schemes that they had compared to ours and their plans were better. Then they executed better than we did, but it started with the original plan. Unfortunately, we can't fold. We had to play (the hand). There has been a lot of times over the last 14 years where it worked that way for us, but it didn't work that way Saturday. They did a better job with their schemes and concepts, so their players executed them better than ours. We practiced just fine. I'd like to be able to push it on that, but I don't think that's where it happened."
On the status of injured players for this week:
"We won't know any of that until tomorrow. They do all of their medical work today with treatments and all that."
On Calvin Bundage:
"We should have taken him out. We should've taken him out right away, as soon as it happened. He didn't help us much in the game. He relies a lot on speed, and he was not moving very well. If we had to do it all over again, we probably would've taken him out earlier. He can come off the edge. He's a good blitzer. He can dip. He's flexible … can get low. He's pretty powerful. He can run to the ball and make plays. He's athletic. I told you guys we'd know a lot about our defense when we start into conference play and find out where he fits and what his role is. We saw a little more of what we'll see the majority of the time in conference play last Saturday. We'll see how it progresses as we go through this and see how he fits into the system. Honestly they're still learning the system. You don't learn it instantly. They're still kind of getting into the flow of it. It takes a little bit of time."
On Justice Hill's number of touches:
"We got behind, and that didn't help. If we were able to go back and do it again, you'd like to have pumped it to him about 18 times in that game. When you get behind late in the third quarter, you've got to start saving a little clock. I sure would like to have him touch it a few more times."
On Tech's defense:
"They didn't even it out. They either blitzed everybody or they played eight-man drop, and when that happens, if they bring them all, you're going to get hit some. If they bring them all and you hit the cutback, you're going to hit them. Then if they play eight-man drop, you should get some decent runs. They brought heavy pressure or they played drop. They didn't really play in the middle … pretty good concept really, on their part."
On the offensive line:
"We have to do a better job of picking those things up. We've got a new guy or two in there, but we are a little further along now. We need to do a better job of picking up a lot of the pressure. We missed those guys at times."
On how to improve the offensive line:
"We'll be coaching them. We coached them yesterday, we will be coaching them tomorrow and every day. That's just what we do. I wish we had a lot more practices before the next game. You take little baby steps, you can't go out there and practice for three hours. You try to get a little better in each stage and minimize the missed assignments. There were some things that they did better in this game than we had done, but some of the mistakes they made forced some negative yardage plays. That's where it pushed us to a jam offensively."
On what the coaches can change to help the offense:
"Nothing. Not anything. There are several things in a car; you've got to have a transmission, you've got to have a radiator, you've got have a fuel pump. That's a piece of the puzzle. You try to improve it, you can't just change who you are and I don't think we necessarily need to. I think we have to look at where we are at and continue to improve on what we are doing and that will make it better."
On the frustration of having an under-performing running game despite talented running backs:
"It's not frustrating. It's part of coaching, it's what we do. If they were all 4.0 students and All-Americans then we wouldn't have coaches. It's not frustrating. We know what has to happen. We just try to continue to work to get a little better each day and they will. They will get better. We've got a couple guys, that for the most part, it's new to them. Sometimes that shows up, but I think they will get better."
Opening Statement:
"We're back at it. My postgame press conference was pretty accurate. As always, we got everybody back together on Sunday and had a good workout last night. We've got a day off today and then we're working on Kansas and getting ready to roll for the next one."
On the struggles vs. Texas Tech:
"I thought that their gameplan was better than ours in all three phases, and they executed it really well. Then we got out of place in the middle or late-third quarter when we couldn't function on offense, turned the ball over and then it just kind of snowballed late."
On his team's focus last week in practice:
"I'd like to say that there was something, but they had better coaching schemes than we did, so it starts with the coaches. Let's just say we're playing poker and you get a couple of aces to start with, and I get a three and a four – the aces are the coaching schemes that they had compared to ours and their plans were better. Then they executed better than we did, but it started with the original plan. Unfortunately, we can't fold. We had to play (the hand). There has been a lot of times over the last 14 years where it worked that way for us, but it didn't work that way Saturday. They did a better job with their schemes and concepts, so their players executed them better than ours. We practiced just fine. I'd like to be able to push it on that, but I don't think that's where it happened."
On the status of injured players for this week:
"We won't know any of that until tomorrow. They do all of their medical work today with treatments and all that."
On Calvin Bundage:
"We should have taken him out. We should've taken him out right away, as soon as it happened. He didn't help us much in the game. He relies a lot on speed, and he was not moving very well. If we had to do it all over again, we probably would've taken him out earlier. He can come off the edge. He's a good blitzer. He can dip. He's flexible … can get low. He's pretty powerful. He can run to the ball and make plays. He's athletic. I told you guys we'd know a lot about our defense when we start into conference play and find out where he fits and what his role is. We saw a little more of what we'll see the majority of the time in conference play last Saturday. We'll see how it progresses as we go through this and see how he fits into the system. Honestly they're still learning the system. You don't learn it instantly. They're still kind of getting into the flow of it. It takes a little bit of time."
On Justice Hill's number of touches:
"We got behind, and that didn't help. If we were able to go back and do it again, you'd like to have pumped it to him about 18 times in that game. When you get behind late in the third quarter, you've got to start saving a little clock. I sure would like to have him touch it a few more times."
On Tech's defense:
"They didn't even it out. They either blitzed everybody or they played eight-man drop, and when that happens, if they bring them all, you're going to get hit some. If they bring them all and you hit the cutback, you're going to hit them. Then if they play eight-man drop, you should get some decent runs. They brought heavy pressure or they played drop. They didn't really play in the middle … pretty good concept really, on their part."
On the offensive line:
"We have to do a better job of picking those things up. We've got a new guy or two in there, but we are a little further along now. We need to do a better job of picking up a lot of the pressure. We missed those guys at times."
On how to improve the offensive line:
"We'll be coaching them. We coached them yesterday, we will be coaching them tomorrow and every day. That's just what we do. I wish we had a lot more practices before the next game. You take little baby steps, you can't go out there and practice for three hours. You try to get a little better in each stage and minimize the missed assignments. There were some things that they did better in this game than we had done, but some of the mistakes they made forced some negative yardage plays. That's where it pushed us to a jam offensively."
On what the coaches can change to help the offense:
"Nothing. Not anything. There are several things in a car; you've got to have a transmission, you've got to have a radiator, you've got have a fuel pump. That's a piece of the puzzle. You try to improve it, you can't just change who you are and I don't think we necessarily need to. I think we have to look at where we are at and continue to improve on what we are doing and that will make it better."
On the frustration of having an under-performing running game despite talented running backs:
"It's not frustrating. It's part of coaching, it's what we do. If they were all 4.0 students and All-Americans then we wouldn't have coaches. It's not frustrating. We know what has to happen. We just try to continue to work to get a little better each day and they will. They will get better. We've got a couple guys, that for the most part, it's new to them. Sometimes that shows up, but I think they will get better."
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