Pat Jones 'roughed it' during successful tenure at OSU

The Mike Gundy Cowboys the last five years: 48-17. The Jones Cowboys from 1984-88: 44-15. Gundy has the Big 12 title and Fiesta Bowl victory; he also has a glittering new stadium.

“The guy had his hands tied here,” said Gundy, Jones' quarterback from 1986-89. “It was extremely difficult. People talked a lot about (the success) of other sports. It's not the same with football, without the tools.”

Jones doesn't disagree. OSU was a hard job back in the '80s. Jones arrived in 1979 with Jimmy Johnson; the Cowboys were on probation and morale was down.

“He was always at the office early, then would stay late,” Gundy said of Jones. “One thing I've always remembered with him, and he said this to me as a young coach and I really didn't understand it … ‘If you go to a big city – Chicago, New York City – and in those buildings where people make a lot of money, the lights are on at 6:30 or 7 in the morning, and they don't go off at 5.' I always remember that.”

Sure, Jones says now, it was hard winning at a place where you might lose a valued assistant coach over salary and where your facilities were just average and your stadium was decrepit. Hard, but fun.

“It wasn't hard coaching (Thurman) Thomas and (Barry) Sanders and (Leslie) O'Neal and (Hart Lee) Dykes,” Jones said. “But running the program, it was always hard.

“You didn't just work for the sake of putting in time. It was all quality stuff. And I won't lie. We played pretty hard at times.

“We didn't have some of the answers they have now. We lost some quality guys (assistants) probably over $15 or $20,000. That makes it hard for a head coach. What we had to do back then was way more homemade than what they do now.”