'We All Want To Have Success And Try To Establish Ourselves': OSU Head Coach Mike Gundy Meets With Media After First Week Of Practice

The Oklahoma State football program hosted its annual media day Saturday afternoon in the OSU Athletics Center, as head coach Mike Gundy and over 30 Cowboy football players met with the media to give an inside look at the upcoming season. Here are some of the comments from Mike Gundy. You can also watch the full press conference here.

Head Coach Mike Gundy

On the first week of practice:

"Good, it's kind of coach's talk. We just got into shoulder pads and the players are attentive. They're excited about being out there, but it's really difficult to tell other than being in pads. We had a competitive day, which is good but, as you know, we've got a long way to go."

On the benefits of the team’s experience:

"We have a difficult nonconference schedule, so experience is going to help us in this area. It allows us to move forward a little quicker than what we've been able to over the last few years, which is necessary, because we're going to need to back off a little earlier in order to get ready to play in the first game."

 On the challenges for newcomers:

"The incoming portal transfers and the young players are going to have to spend more time on their own in the evening prior to school starting to play catch-up. It's going to move really fast. That's just the way it is sometimes. I don't anticipate many of those guys making an impact in the first few games of the season anyways just because we have so many returning players. So, they'll have time to play catch-up, but the message that we had given them is that if you want to be in a position to contribute early, you're going to spend a lot of time. You're going to be force fed a lot of information. It's unusual because we do have so many mature players."

 On the veteran offensive line:

"They're grown men. The best-case scenario would be that we could get to the first game with the faith to play eight or nine guys in that game. It's the one position that really gets fatigued and, as you know in my 20 years as a head coach, we haven't had the ability to rotate many of those guys. Over the last four years, the two positions that we've been really beat up at are wide receiver and offensive line. We are very fortunate to win as many games as we have with the situation we had from an injury standpoint at those two positions. Now, we've got a number of guys that have played and we actually can rotate guys and try to keep some of them fresh. If we do get a guy that gets banged up a little bit and has to miss some time, we don't have to hold our breath every play. So, that's kind of what our thought process is at this point."

 On the threat wide receiver De'Zhaun Stribling poses:

"It's a challenge. You have to be careful about playing man on him. Quite honestly, you have to be careful about playing man on our slot. So, if we can keep the guys healthy that we have on the perimeter, we're going to force people to play an extra guy in the box. You're going to have to stop Ollie (Gordon II) running the ball. I don't know if we'll be any good at it or not, but that's what we think we're going to do. So, if they can stop it with the correct number of guys in the box, then so be it. But, if you're going to put enough guys down in the box to stop the run, you're going to have to play some man coverage on the perimeter. That's a choice you have to make."

 On the addition of wide receiver Gavin Freeman:

"He's done really well. Players have rallied around him. He seems to be comfortable here. He's a good addition for us. He's an interesting player. He ran 22 miles-per-hour in five games last year at this level, which is very unusual. He's got a lot of raw ability, (he) loves to play football, he's a former wrestler, he's an over 300-pound bencher. (He can) vertical jump 36 and a half inches and run 22 miles-per-hour in games last year, which means that he plays fast, not only in practice but in games. So, he's another guy that will jump in there for us at the slot position."

 On players holding each other accountable:

"If your culture doesn't allow your players to hold themselves accountable, it's extremely difficult. This generation of young men doesn't really allow coaches to motivate them. So, our job is to put them in a position to be successful. If they can't drive themselves and motivate themselves and want to win for each other, it'll be really hard for us to want to win for them because I don't play in the games. Neither does anybody else that coaches. So, we have to instill that type of character in them over a period of time. Our job is to convince them that they're going to have to work, put forth effort like they never have before in their life and that's going to be okay, and it'll benefit them on Saturday in the fall. They have to hold themselves accountable. We'll be much more successful in that arena than if we tried to convince them to be successful by talking to them."

 On the quarterbacks:

“They’re doing good. (Alan) Bowman is more comfortable this year… My first year here, (Larry) Fedora was the coordinator and that system was driven by quarterback play. Quarterbacks that’re in this system and understand the concepts of what we’re trying to get accomplished always play better than they do when they just show up because one, they don’t have experience and two, they don’t really understand what we’re trying to do on offense. Bowman has now had a lot of snaps and that’s an advantage for him at this time. Rangel has never really been in there long enough for us to evaluate him. There are times he’s shown that he makes plays and there’s times people said he didn’t play very good. He hadn’t had a chance to learn our system and, you can go back over the years for all the quarterbacks we’ve had here, once you learn the system, you get a lot better. I think that benefits him at this time.”

 On the growth of quarterback Zane Flores:

“I think he’s ready now, he’s just not experienced. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s smart, he’s tough. His attitude is good. He’s humble, he’s hungry. He hasn’t played, but that’s the difference now compared to this time last year.”

 On establishing OSU football as the face of the new Big 12:

“I think we all want to have success and try to establish ourselves. There’s so many teams in this league now and it’s so new. For example, two seasons ago, TCU had a season that nobody would’ve predicted, and then last year, they didn’t fare as well as they wanted to and nobody would’ve predicted that. TCU, in my opinion when I look at what they have on paper, if they get good quarterback play, they’re going to be pretty good again this year. So, it’s hard to predict how you can establish yourself. The only thing that I would say is this: From day one when I was lucky enough to get this job, I said that our goal and my goal personally was to make sure that we put a product on the field that could fill the stadium every Saturday and people knew if we played well, we could win the game… That has not always been that way at Oklahoma State, but it is now. So, I’m comfortable with that. If we’re the face of the league, that I don’t know. My goal is to put a product out there that the fans can come and enjoy their Saturday, tailgate and say, ‘You know what? We might win this game.’”

 On managing running back Ollie Gordon II’s workload:

“We’re in a better situation than we were this time last year, in my opinion. Ollie’s going to have to carry the load, but hopefully not quite as much. There were games last year where he carried the ball around 30 times. I would prefer that not to happen and I’m hoping we have a couple guys that could get in there and steal 10-12 carries from him to keep him fresh. My guess is that’s going to happen. We’ll know a lot more in two weeks, but Ollie is bigger, stronger, faster and better conditioned now than he was at this time last year. So, there will be times where he will have to carry the load. Hopefully, just not as much as what we did last year.”

 On depth at running back:

“They’re doing good. They haven’t been hit enough yet. I’m not worried about (Trent) Howland; I think he’s been hit enough throughout his career. He’s 242 pounds, so he should be able to handle that side of it. Sesi (Vailahi) is 207 now. He’s dropped his 40-time by five-tenths since he’s been here. He was a baby last year. He’s grown up a little bit, he’s showing some signs of maturity. He has good vision, so I’m comfortable in that area. We’ve got some young kids that have come in and are doing some things that might be able to help us a little bit anyway. Those (freshmen) can play four games until postseason and then they’re active to play the rest of the year, so I guess a fair answer would be we’re better off now than we were this time last year.”

 On defensive adjustments:

“This was an unusual defense last year. There were times that they won games for us and then were times that we gave up too many yards. We’d drop coverage and in the first three games, we didn’t tackle very well. Some of the more important games early in the season last year, games we won that people didn’t think we could win, our defense really kept us in those games and then finished them off for us. There were times we wished they would have played better because of some mistakes. The good news is we’ve identified what the issues were. Now, the coaches have to work to fix those issues and find a plan to get the players to understand why that happened and how we can get better. It’s honestly not real complicated; You tackle better, you don’t drop coverage, you keep everything in front of you, force the offense to run nine, 10, 11 play drives and in most cases, the offense will mess it up.”

 On safety Kendal Daniels:

“He’s doing good. We’re moving Kendal around. He’s playing up some, he’s playing back some. Again, he’s only been in pads once. Kendal is 233 pounds, he’s a good-looking guy. He’s hanging in there no matter where he’s at. He learned a lot of things last year. He’s one of the players I’m excited about watching and seeing where he’s at. There’s been talk about how physical he would be if we wanted to play him down some, more than we did last year. He showed signs in the spring of that being okay. Spring is a lot different than it is in-season. Two months from now when they’ve been beat up on and you’re in games and continue to get beat up on, that’ll be the real indicator if it’ll work.”

 On linebacker Collin Oliver:

“Collin is a pure Cowboy. He loves Oklahoma State, he’s been tremendous for us. By the time he’s finished, he’ll have more than one degree. He does well in school, he’s got tremendous social skills, he’s a great ambassador for the university… He's put himself in a tremendous position for the future. He’s been a really, really good football player for us. You can count of him, you can trust him. If things get going tough, he won’t flinch. He can lead the locker room when coaches can’t. Those guys are valuable.”