Gundy talks Fall Camp
As Corral users know well, we typically do “Cliff’s Notes” of Mike Gundy‘s weekly media luncheon press conferences. We will be doing that again this year when they fire those up on August 21 to preview the season and home-opener with UT-Martin on August 28th. Yesterday, Oklahoma State football held their annual Media Day. Here is a modified version of what we do with the media luncheon pressers – I’ve paraphrased key questions and answers from Gundy, along with timestamps for those who would like to hear his full response.
0:00 Question about the quarterback battle – Flores and Hejny getting morst of the reps. Two young guys are doing welll. Could very well see both of Flores and Hejny in the first game. No timeline for naming a starter. Both are very competitive. Production. Team will start to migrate to one or the other. Both mobile enough to run the ball. 50/50 split in first game? Wouldn’t be fair to say right now. At this point, we don’t have enough info to name a starter. So all options on the table.
3:15 New Additions – have 34 guys we’ve seen practice four times now. 12-14 will be playing in the first game. 12 guys are freshmen, which is a normal transition. Maybe 2 of those will be on the field this season. That’s not where we’re at, with mature transfer players being in that transition group.
4:50 New coaches – I’m coaching them up in meetings on what I want. Very pleased with the coaching, enthusiasm, excitement from the coaches in a very early stage.
5:36 – QB coach Kevin Johns – that was one of the hardest positions to fill in this last search. Very few guys out there I thought could coach these guys. Very few I trust. Very lucky that he was available.
8:53 – Playing with a new QB – Easiest to do is have a returning experienced guy. Pat Mahomes is back as the starter for example. That’s set and then you can allocate reps to the others. There’s plenty of reps now for two guys. Difficult part is you want to keep both healthy. Meacham is doing things similar to what we’ve done before, but not enough to give Flores an edge from being here for two years, from a communication stage.
10:35 – A lot of new faces on OL – Big # of transfers, mature guys, so they are playing a lot of guys right now. Should be able to get to a two-deep around the 20th. Gives you a week to practice to start the season. Garner, Mitchell and Bassett have been awesome, done a great job coaching.
11:40 – Who are you best players? – Don’t know. Feels odd, major transition in total # of people. Not like you’re coming back with a Ollie or Spencer Sanders
14:30 – Jaleel Johnson, DeSean Brown development – Jaleel, he’s bigger. DB has gotten bigger, he’s up to 280. Time for those guys to make plays. Been in the system a number of years. Both injured at times last year. Healthy at this point.
16:08 – Impressed with transfers? – There’s young ones and old ones, right? Have quite a few x-fers that are freshmen. The ones that have been competitive at our level or one below us for a # of years is the ones you expect to be competive znc impact. Young guys, still in a development stage. Terrill Davis has exceeded my expectations.
19:08 – How many RB’s will play? – Have to be able to run the ball. As of right now, we have a number of guys that we’re comfortable with who can rush the football in a game.
19:38 – Competition among position groups – Guys understand their being paid well and their contracts in the future are based on production. Guys who are get new contracts. Guys who don’t, don’t. And on top of that lose their education.
22:05 – 40 years of CFB for you, has that hit you? – Nobody would have thought me or anybody else as HC of OSU football that it would have lasted more than 5/6 years. Had a lot of things to overcome to be successful. After while, got established as a national brand. Fortunate as far as my health. Energy as good as it’s ever been. Do catch myself at times counting years. Goes fast. Been very fortunate to be here.
24:40 – When youre done coaching, what then? – Hopefully CFB will be in a better place then. Going guess that eventually, I’ll get into television.
25:30 – How would you fix CFB? – Need a commissioner, one person in charge. Get the 4 power people in one room and start talking about equality, revenue share across the country. Follow the NFL pattern. Can’t have a group that’s getting this money and then another getting less and then expect people to tune in TV and watch it.
27:05 – Secondary, what does it look like? – Lot of guys, just visiting with Kenyatta this AM. Need about 7 guys to play those positions. Some guys just adapting, learning our system. I can see where they’re playing faster. In one-on-one drills, it’s been highly competitive and have been very successful.
28:07 – Tackle better this year? – Did a lot of things last year that weren’t very good. Then we lost our two best defensive players to injury and that hurt our tackling. Talk about tackling all the time. Want to tackle enough (in practice) to be able to do it in the game. Coach Parcells said don’t expect to tackle good in the game if you don’t tackle in practice. Now you’re tackling guys that are making a million $ a year. Lot of money invested in those guys, need to get them out there and play (in games). I think the most athletic teams are going to be the best tackling teams.
