Oklahoma State Postgame Quotes Vs. Central Michigan

Oklahoma State Quotes

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy

Opening Statement:
"I was pleased. Our target punting made a big difference tonight, in this game with Tom. And our coverage and downing the ball inside the 10 several times. We were really good in our return game. Good with penalties. For the most part, we weren't very penalized. We were even with turnovers, right? We intercepted one and then they blocked a punt, which is basically the same thing, so we were even with turnovers. Obviously, offensively we played really well. Spencer was really good. Wideouts made plays. Backs did a nice job, took care of the football, made plays. Played pretty good up front. Without watching the tape, it looks like to me we need to improve in run blocking some. Looked like we could've run blocked a little better. We did protect good. I thought our protection was really good. Defensively, we played good up until the middle of the third quarter, and we had a lot of young guys get a taste of what it's like to get out there."

On the pace of the offense:
"We were very effective playing fast, and one thing that works against us a little bit is, once you get ahead by, I think we were ahead by four touchdowns, obviously you don't want to play fast then. So, obviously, then you slow down, and we're probably not as good at that as we are playing fast. But I was pleased with our ability to play fast and make plays in space."

On getting his 150^th win:
"Like I told the team, it takes a lot of really quality people and good young men for a guy to stay in once place long enough to win 150 games. I'm just lucky enough to be along for the ride. That's pretty cool."

On Spencer Sanders' performance:
"Just his experience. It's so difficult to get young people ready to play without going out and making mistakes and playing. Spencer is a really good player now guys, I'm telling you. He's good at what he does, and you saw what happens when you give him a little protection. Our guys protected him good tonight and you see what happens. Sometimes people kind of nag on him a little bit, but that's usually when he's not protected very well. But if you go back to when he was playing his redshirt freshman and sophomore years, those of you that have been covering us forever, he didn't look anything like that. He just hadn't had the experience. Now, it's become second nature for him, and he gets it and he has a feel for it, so that's a big advantage for us."

On the running back group:
"I thought the backs were pretty good. And I say that, I mean I'm always hard on the offensive line, you guys know that, but I know there was a few times we didn't get up on the backers, but I thought the backs ran pretty hard. I thought they did a good job. It looked like to me that we had good ball security and I thought they were in attack mode, so I was pleased with them."

Oklahoma State quarterback Spencer Sanders

On early offensive explosion:
"Just go out there and operate. Forget about the last drive, whatever we did wrong. It's a new drive, we have to do what we do. Can't really think too much of the past once it's over with. There's nothing you can do to go back and change it. Watch film and fix it for the next game."

On chemistry with receivers:
"There was a lot of love everywhere. A lot of guys got to touch the ball tonight. I think three different guys scored off passing touchdowns, so that's always good. Just like I spoke on at the Big 12 Media (Day), whatever I can do to get those guys as comfortable as possible. And it's really not even me. They did their time; they studied and did what they needed to do. Obviously, they succeeded."

On setting his career passing yards in a game record:
"I just take it one play at a time. I'm not really too concerned with stats right now; I'm just worrying about what everybody can do to help my team."

Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn

On the offensive line:
"I'd have to see the film. I thought early on, we did a good job moving the football. Obviously, we did. But in the second half, when we needed to run the football, we didn't run the football. I don't know why. There are various reasons, I have my guesses."

On playing with a high pace:
"That's definitely how we want to play the game. It's kind of funny when Gundy talked about it in the second half, a lot of that is built with smart read zone gain. When you get to the second half like that, and you have a little bit of a lead, it's kind of scary to put the ball up. It's kind of scary to start running the quarterback. In that situation, the guy pulls the ball and you're up 'x' amount of points. Then, all of a sudden, you're going 'what the hell was I doing,' you know? You second guess yourself if the quarterback got hurt in that situation. So, you start to slow down through those type of things. Part of our offense got cut out in the second half."

On the running backs:
"I thought they were good. I think Dom (Richardson) played well. I liked to see how Ollie (Gordon) showed up because we're going to need him. Obviously, I want to see how Jaden (Nixon) showed up and played. But they didn't get a ton of opportunities. I don't know how many times we handed off. I haven't seen the stat sheet yet. I don't know that for certain. We could be talking about guys with a one-yard average."

On Spencer Sanders:
"He got out into a groove. He ran the ball a couple times and he's better after he starts to run it a little bit. Just what it is, with anybody. Golfer gets up and starts to swing it and he's eventually on the fourth hole. You're better than you were at hole number one. That started to show up and he played really well and executed. He made some throws that were on point, right on point. We missed a couple early, that kind of sputtered things a little bit for us. But I thought he played really well."

Oklahoma State receiver Brennan Presley

On gaining momentum throughout the year:
"We have young guys that are now experienced guys. I mean, this is the first game of the year, we got to make tweaks. Once we get a couple games around the belt, find a good rhythm and things like that. It also depends on defenses. Defenses change, you go up against different people every week. Once we get in a good rhythm, maybe mid-season, everything depends on different things."

On importance of having extra rest days leading into the next game:
"It's really beneficial. First games of the year are always tough because you can't simulate that in any scrimmage. Whatever you do in practice, you can't simulate it. It'll be good for us just to get our legs and bodies back. Also just having extra time to prepare for the next game. I think it's good for us physically and mentally."

Oklahoma State safety Kendal Daniels

On the second half of the first game:
"In the second half, we kind of lost focus. As a defensive team, we made mistakes. We busted on a lot of coverages. We just have to be better if we want to be that championship team. We just have to be better all-around."

On correctable mistakes:
"I feel like everything is correctable. The effort's there. The coaches are going to go in tomorrow and watch film. They're going to tell us what we can get better on. Then we just go in and listen to them and get better and get ready for Arizona State."

On the game slowing down:
"The first drive, I was so tired. But, when I got out there some more, I slowed down. It's just like high school. Make plays and do what you do."

Oklahoma State linebacker Mason Cobb

On the offense improving from last year:
"I'm proud the offense is putting up more points compared to last year, it's big and we're all getting better. That's something we had to take on as the defense and we had a couple busts to allow first downs where we could've been off the field. Just fixing those little things will help us.:

On his first defensive possession:
"Most of the plays, we've seen them a lot in the past two weeks. It was just natural, calling out screens and just communicating."

On his comfort level:
"I don't really get nervous; I get nervous on the first play. After that it's just playing football and just playing the game I love, not really anything crazy."

Oklahoma State safety Jason Taylor II

On what he learned about coach Derek Mason:
"I don't think I really learned anything differently. In practice we have done a lot of game situations, so this was just like a hype practice. You play the game, it's just football and it's pretty much the same."

On the fans who showed out to the game:
"I was very appreciative of the fans; we have the best fans in the nation. I think that even with the weather we had and not knowing if it was going to rain during the game or kickoff, everybody was still there. I think that just shows who the Cowboy nation is."

Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Derek Mason

On the overall defensive performance:
"I thought at times we blew some coverages. They did a good job of giving us some looks, but I think we just need to communicate better. Our veterans, the group of guys who have been together forever, all that communication has developed over time. Like tonight we were missing some communication but those are easy fixes. You get into the film room; you talk about those things that are there to be fixed and you fix them. Overall, I'll give it a C, I don't think it was good enough while other times I thought it was great. For us all the way around, we have a lot of room for improvement."

On the importance of having extra days before the next game:
"To me just looking at the time we have and what we're able to pull from this ball game, it's only going to make us better. Whether it was our disguise, how we tackled, or what our run fix looked like, it gives us time to really dissect it. A normal game week you have to flush it and move on. Now what we get to do is really pull it apart, put it back together, and then get back together Sunday and talk about Arizona State."

On the adjustments he made at halftime: "We talked about some of the passing game and what we were seeing in some of the matchups. I thought the guys made the adjustments fairly well. The first series of the half was not what you wanted but the guys settled down and I thought they did what they were supposed to. They also relaxed and again that's what happens when you're still trying to find your identity. You're young so you have to stay hungry, you have to keep attacking, and I learned some things about who we are too. I have to continue to let these guys hunt. I don't think I pulled them back, but we have to continue to keep coming after people. I think that's what's going to help this young group while they grow up. It's about understanding how to finish the kill."

Central Michigan Quotes

Central Michigan head coach Jim McElwain

Opening statement:
"First off, that's a hell of a football team we played. They're going to be in the national picture as the season goes on and I can easily see them winning this league. They've got a complete team and they've got a quarterback that can make plays not only throwing the football, but obviously with his feet and we knew that going in."

On starting quarterback Daniel Richardson:
"I thought D-Rich really did a good job of taking what the defense gives him and even on the interception, we had a busted route on the other side; The guy shouldn't have been there if he was going to the proper spot. He took care of the football for the most part, he put the ball where they needed to catch it and we're going to need that. We're going to need some 450, 500, 600-yard passing games for people to loosen up the box and we can get Lew (Nichols III) going a little bit."

On the message to the team after getting down early:
"They fought through it. When (OSU) scored 30 in a row, I probably was more worried about that damn horse cramping up running around the endzone there. I really like our football team. We're going to win a lot of games and those kids are going to learn from this video and we're going to get a little bit better."

Central Michigan quarterback Daniel Richardson

On how he kept the team morale up after 30 straight points:
"Basically, I said it was not over yet. At the end of the day, there's time left on that clock and if there's 30 minutes left, we got to go out with a fight."

On how the newcomers fared in this game:
"This is probably one of the best receiving corps I've had in a long time. Overall, I thought all the receivers played great tonight. We just got to get back to the drawing board, fix the couple miscues we had and get even better."

On his career-high performance tonight:
"It takes the five up front. Without them, it doesn't get started. We got to get the ball in our playmakers hands and just go from there. At the end of the day, we don't look at the stats exactly, we always want to win at the end of the day. We just got to get back to the drawing board and go onto the next, onto South Alabama."

On the confidence the offense can take after this game:
"We did a lot of stuff better, we just have to get back to the basics and the fundamentals and getting our technique down, just the little things. Like coach says every day, we got to get a little bit better every day and get the knicks and knacks handled and get better, that's the goal."

Oklahoma State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Mason Cobb

Kendal Daniels

Brennan Presley

Spencer Sanders

Jason Taylor II

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