Gundy Goes Live Nationwide
Cowboys coach Mike Gundy did a spot on SiriusXM’s College Sports Nation station Monday, speaking with Mark Packer and Eddie George to help kickoff the season’s Week 1 chatter.
The interview spanned many subjects. Here are Gundy’s responses:
On the job he’s done so far in Stillwater:
“We’ve been very fortunate. We’re going into our eighth season. We’ve changed our facilities here. We’re about four months away from finishing our indoor (practice facility) and three practice fields. We’ve had a great group of players who have come through here. We’ve been fortunate to have guys with enough ability to play in the NFL. But for the most part, the majority of our team have been really quality young men who work hard and continue to work hard and are buying into our system. Their attitudes have been great and their body language is good. And for that reason, they’ve had success.”
On the transition from Brandon Weeden to Wes Lunt:
“It’s interesting that we’ve gone from Brandon, to now we’ve essentially named a high school player as the starter in spring. It’s been good. It’s always a little scary when you put a new guy into the quarterback position, much less a freshman. But he’s done very well. He’s shown great improvement over the summer and in preseason camp. He seems to have short-term memory, which is good for a quarterback. The players are starting to mold around him a little bit. He’s got a very good temperament. Up to this point, he’s handled the good days very well. And he’s handled the bad days. He doesn’t get too excited and he doesn’t get too down. We think he’s going to be fine. He’s got a good body on him. He’s 6-4 and 217 pounds right now. He’ll probably leave here at 6-4 1/2 and 225 or 230. It’s been different, because Brandon’s always been able to take care of everything for us with his maturity and ability. But we believe in our system. We believe in our players around him. A lot of the success in sports is based on the mental approach. Our players here have had so much success and won so many games, they just expect to win, no matter who’s playing in any condition.”
On keeping things rolling at the wide receiver position:
“We have really good young receivers in our program. We have Charlie Moore, Tracy Moore, Josh Stewart and Isaiah Anderson who are experienced players. And then we have some young receivers – we may play as many as three freshmen receivers in the first game. But then we have to play six or seven in each game, because we play with such up-tempo. And then we’ll play with a freshman running back (Desmond Roland) behind Jeremy (Smith) and Joseph Randle. So we’ll have a number of young skill players. But when you tie in character, ability, size and everything that is involved in developing quality football players, this is probably the best freshman class that we’ve had here. So we’re really excited about some of those guys. But for the most part, our veteran players are going to have to step up where Blackmon left off. So you take a guy like Tracy and Isaiah and Josh Stewart, they’ve got to get up in that 40-, 50-catch area – each one – to make up for what Justin was able to do by himself.”
On the ability of the defense:
“Our defense has taken a lot of heat over the past two years. Statistically, on paper, they don’t look as good as obviously what our offense does. But we play so fast and there’s so many changes after touchdowns, they’re on the field a considerable amount of time. There’s a statistic that we took last year, our defense was 48th in the country on average yards given up per attempt. So we were about middle of the pack in the country. But our turnovers have been so good the past two years. They’ve given the ball back to our offense, which is why we’ve been able to score as many points as we have. So we’ve really worked hard on tackling in space. We’ve worked hard on forcing turnovers. As we all know, defense is about gap control and limiting your missed assignments, so you don’t give up the big plays.”
On OSU’s improved facilities, thanks to Boone Pickens:
“He made a statement a few years ago to start our stadium. After that, we finished this end zone facility that’s second to none. It’s as good as anybody in the country. We’re now over halfway done on our indoor center and outdoor practice fields. It’s keeping up with the Joneses. If you don’t have something bright and shiny and new, it makes it extremely difficult to recruit the quality men you need to win games.”
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