Doug Meacham describes his first week as Oklahoma State interim head coach

Oklahoma State parted ways with long-time head coach Mike Gundy about two weeks ago. In the time since, interim coach Doug Meacham has done his best to get his feet planted firmly on the ground as he seeks a turnaround.

The team is just 1-3 on the season, having lost this weekend against Baylor in Meacham’s debut. Still, the new coach came away raving about several positives.

This is new for him, but it’s also new for his guys. Uncharted territory, if you will.

“Like I said, I’ve never been a head coach but at elementary school,” Doug Meacham said. “This is a lot of new stuff I never thought about. I mean everybody thinks being a head coach is easy. And then you do it and realize there’s a lot more to it than you thought, as anything would be probably.

“I don’t know. Bottom line is I just feel like I’m just so proud of the kids’ willingness to participate and be a part and the vibe that they’re providing. It makes it easy for all us coaches to go out and do our job and have fun and stuff like that. Continue to just devote all our time and effort into what we can do to help them win a game, because it’s all about them. So that part’s been fun.”

Oklahoma State and Doug Meacham have some winnable games coming up. This week will be a road trip to Arizona, followed by home dates against Houston and Cincinnati.

A win in any of those games would provide the program with a spark. But that’ll be up to Meacham and company. And he’s still getting settled.

“Just the media stuff and things like that, it’s definitely different for me, because typically … a lot of places I’ve been the coordinators don’t really do much of this type stuff,” Doug Meacham said. “It usually just falls on the head coach. So this is obviously new. But other than that it’s really not that much difference, other than gameday’s a little different on the sidelines. I’ve got special teams guys yelling at me if we want a timeout or not and I’m trying to find the next play, it’s kind of different. But again, just common denominator for me on all of it’s just been just the players and enjoying them and having fun.”

Can Oklahoma State turn things around? That remains to be seen.

But at the very least, Doug Meacham is seeing a lot of buy-in from his team. That’s the encouraging part.

“We could have had 10 guys hop in and redshirt, and I don’t feel like that’s going to occur as of now,” he said. “I think it’s a positive sign that these guys are kind of galvanized by it a little bit. It’s encouraging.”