Mike Gundy is an offensive guy. He was the all-time Big Eight passing leader and made his mark as an offensive coordinator. But if the Oklahoma State football program is to take the next step, Gundy realizes the Cowboys can't rely on winning shootouts.
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"To win the Big 12 Championship we have to get better on defense,” Gundy said. "Everybody knows that. You can't win in this league without winning on defense. We have to continue to perform on offense and get better on defense.”
After reviewing film from the defense-dominated Orange-White game and 15 spring practices, OSU's staff is optimistic the defense will be much improved.
"We'll be better,” Gundy said. "We'll be faster. We'll have more depth. And we'll tackle better. And they're a full year into the system.”
Just as former offensive coordinator Larry Fedora emphasized speed, defensive coordinator Tim Beckman's scheme is predicated on recruiting speed. Five junior college transfers, and redshirt freshmen like defensive ends Richetti Jones and Jamie Blatnick, have upgraded the defense's talent and depth.
"The influx of the mid-term guys so far has worked out for us,” Gundy said. "A lot of times when you bring in mid-term guys you hit on 50 percent (of them).”
It's too early to make an evaluation but the inside scoop is coaches believe they might bat 1.000 on seven junior college transfers.
"Some of them aren't as far along as the others, but they're fitting in our system in all areas,” Gundy said. "They're doing well in school. They're training well this summer. That added depth will help.”
Beckman's goal is a top-50 defense. That would be a remarkable improvement considering the Cowboys were 101st in total defense, 112th in pass defense and 79th in scoring defense.
"I'm all for top 50,” Gundy said, smiling. "That would be quite a jump… But I'm very encouraged with our defense. We have high expectations. And so do our players.”
Defense has long been a shortcoming in Stillwater.
Over the past 20 years, only once have the Cowboys had a defense that finished in the top 50 in both scoring and total defense – the 1997 Alamo Bowl team.
"We have to stay healthy up front,” Gundy said. "We'll be better, but we can't afford to have guys get hurt to where (defensive tackle) Jeray (Chatham) plays 60 plays a game again.”
OSU coaches are in the midst of a three-week period where they alternate vacations. When the staff reassembles in mid-July, it's realistic to game-plan with expectations the defense will be improved.
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No Jacob, I shouldn't coach. I'm just a "cockroach" that doesn't appreciate the positives of being humiliated by Sun Belt Mid-majors with rosters full of no-name/no-star recruits.
I thought the reason our Defense was so bad is that we fans are all a bunch of "cockroaches". It was either that or the notion that some of us didn't blindly drink the 6-6 is "improvement" over 6-6" Kool-Aide nor the 18-19 is something to celebrate and reward Kool-Aide. Either way, it's got to be we fans fault. Lord knows it has nothing to do with coaching. Maybe it's because the tickets are too cheap.
A serious question for OU loser fans...If you didn't have football championships, what else would stand out in your athletic department? Just curious. I am sure my friend who copies my name will answer with something about animal husbandry or something moronic. But really though, what else is there? Copy my name loser reply in 3,2,1....
OU fans even try to copy my name. I, Jacob, an OSU grad, am not an OU fan. Some OU loser is copying me on the OSU articles and saying stupid stuff like below. OU losers in full force for sure! He will copy me in 3,2,1....
Jacob, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. We were called Oklahoma A&M back then, so our back-to-back National Championships in basketball should be stripped? There's no possible way you could have kept a straight face while you were typing that comment. It's the same school. We just changed the name. It's not like Oklahoma A&M was located in Tulsa, then when we changed to Oklahoma State we threw all of our textbooks in a bunch of moving vans and set-up shop in Stillwater. This school, regardless of what the name was, won those championships. Even for a clueless Sooner fan, that comment was off the charts. I'll tell you what then, all of OU's football championships before 2000 should be stripped because you guys changed your school logo. That's not the logo that won those championships, so you've got no right to claim them. Are you kidding me?
Look guys I don't care what they do, or say down in sooner town. I don't even read most of their articles, I just don't care about them. My over optimistic prediction is 9/4 with losses to: at MU, at UT, at TT, and at CU. OU is at our place and we're off the week before while OU squeeeeeks out a win over TT at home. That's it!
M from Oklahoma City, you are so right about classlessness winers and losers. What about classless "never been there before" fans? they seem to be the worst of all. OU can talk about football, they have been there! Baseball, they have been there also, and it didnt take 18 tries. Wrestling, they have been there once again. Kudos to osu for 48 national championships, woo hoo! , but none of them have been in football or basketball, wait wait, no bashing, it was called Oklahoma A&M then, so dont even try to lay claim OSU cowboys, its so wrong to grab ahold of something that never was yours to begin with.
Jacob in kansas, mynewbff - Jun 30, 2008 at 6:51 pm
OsU needs to stick with animal husbandry and other classes like that, leave the sports to the only real universities in Oklahoma, OU and Tulsa, stick to ag and mechanics, that is what osu is good at.
Jacob in kansas, mynewbff - Jun 30, 2008 at 6:37 pm
makes me sick how I keep hearing how good osu is going to be, hell they have been on the rise for 80+ years now, how friggen long does it take? the real story here is the large amounts of money waisted on renovating such a dismal place. Hey I have lots of money and over here I have a broken down horse stable with a 1975 Buick 4door sitting in the corner, now what i'm going to do is fix up that car. Makes absolutly no sence what so ever, but i'm going to do it anyway just because I am an old man with dimentia, and I have lots of money to throw around.
Jacob in kansas, mynewbff - Jun 30, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Absolutely right, you have to start somewhere. Improving facilities and focus on defense is the right combo. No guarantees with Texas and OU (or Tech this year)in your division. You must beat those teams to contend. And, ripping OU, or its fans, doesn't make you look any better. Only thing worse than a classless winner is a classless loser.
OSU will be fun to watch. We will be very good offensively. Decent and improved defensively. Much deeper. This team will win a good number of games and will be good enough to realistically step on the field with anyone in the conference and compete to win. They may not win them all, but will have the ability to expect to win against any of the teams. How many times in the past have we been able to say that!! This program is greatly improved and we should support Gundy and his staff!! We are not the Sooner football program, yet, and may never be, but we are putting an ever-improving product on the field.
All this talk about how bad our defense was last year reminds me of that line from the film Casablance: "I am shocked..SHOCKED...to find gambling going on here!" Everyone knew our defense was soft going in, and to win, we would need the mentality to score whenever we had the ball on offense. We had that mentality against Texas Tech and Indiana and won, we got conservative against Texas A&M and Texas and lost. In fact, can you look at any of our losses last year and say that our defense was primarily responsible? Against Georgia, Troy, Kansas, our supposedly great offense and special teams were bad, and poor play-calling and poor execution at critical times against Texas and the Aggies hurt us more than our defense. We should have built such a huge lead inthe third quarter that the Longhorns could not have come back, even against our defense.
Manny, 48 NCAA sanctioned National Championships and counting. If we stop winning and OU continues on the pace that they are on, OU will catch us in about 200 years. Now that is impressive. There has never been a better time to be a COWBOY!!!
Manny...you're a moron. Learn to write. Learn to proof read. Slow down and make sure you remove all the stupidity from your comment, if that is possible. Relax, slow down, it is not a race. Measure twice, cut once. What the heck does "…it will 2068. Go get it ?" mean? And if what I am saying doesn't make sense, your local library on wheels should be hosting free learn to read classes that will help you out.
There are a lot of classless remarks by OSU fans on here that are unwarranted. Antimosity is one thing, name-calling and mud-slinging are quite another. It's the difference between children and gentlemen. Think about that before you post, which one are you?
We OU fans should welcome the competition and not sink to Constance and Danny's level. Having OSU football improve is good for OU football. But make no mistake, OSU is not going to have the "best" facilities in the country. Among the best, of course. But a 60,000 seat stadium when OU has (and fills) a 85,000 seat stadium is not what you would call the Roman Coliseum. Anyhow, good luck to the Cowboys and we Sooners welcome the trash-talking and ask you to prove it on the field. :-)
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