OSU football: Mike Gundy doesn’t flee from the pressure

OSU is No. 3 in the BCS rankings. That’s new territory for the Cowboys, but so far, they’ve handled it very well. Since beating Texas A&M, the Cowboys have been in the national spotlight. But they’ve routed Texas at Texas, Missouri at Missouri and Baylor at Boone Pickens Stadium.

And it appears the Cowboys have a solid leader when it comes to dealing with the pressure of such high expectations. Mike Gundy is admitting the existence of such pressure.

“It’s more difficult each week,” Gundy said Monday during his weekly press conference. “Anybody who says it’s not is probably giving you a coach’s line. It’s human nature.

“There’s more attention drawn to your team, more attention drawn to your players individually. If anybody says there’s not more pressure put on them as the season progresses, I’d like to know how they avoid it.”

I like that attitude. Yes, you have to prepare each week, whether it’s Kansas or Bedlam on the schedule. Yes, you have to concentrate on Saturdays; the lessons of the last two Texas Tech games are apparent.

But there’s no reason to pretend that the pressure isn’t greater now than it was when OSU was a mid-level Big 12 team, wrestling for bowl positioning.

The pressure mounts on the Cowboys every week. They carry the expectations not just for themselves, but for OSU teams and fans of generations past. This season already is likely to be the greatest in school history. It has a chance to be even more than that.