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TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL: STANFORD v OKLAHOMA STATEDecember 30, 2011Mike GundyGLENDALE, ARIZONA Q. Stanford is a really heavy run team. Have you faced a team like them this year? COACH GUNDY: Texas was similar in style and play to Stanford. Obviously there was a big difference in quarterback play. We're facing what we would all expect to be the number one player picked in the draft. But as far as tight ends, some movement fullback play, a lot of power, a lot of counter. Texas would be the one team we faced that was similar. Kansas State used some of the same sets, some of the same personnel; was different in the quarterback running attack compared to what Stanford is. Q. Is the toughest thing their ability because of Luck to be able to pass out of those formations and balance those two? COACH GUNDY: You're saying what's toughest to defend? Q. How different does it make it? They cannot only run the ball but pass the ball because of Luck. COACH GUNDY: I have always said at any level of play, whether you are in middle school, high school, college or professional, when you have a good quarterback, you have a chance to win games. And with his ability to make plays off play action, throw the ball down the field, how he uses his tight ends, try to get receivers behind the safeties in the running game. But, in my opinion, when I watch him, where I think he is really effective, does a great job of dumping the ball down the flats, uses his fullback and his backs, and he is really effective. We break down our quarterbacks each week, where their success is, whether it is in the pocket, out of the pocket, where we think they are vulnerable. We don't find any weaknesses with him. He is certainly the best player. This is the best team we have faced this season. Q. What can the impact of this game, your first BCS game, be on this Oklahoma State program? COACH GUNDY: Every game we play in is important. Our players understand the responsibility of preparation. They owe it to each other to go out and play hard and have fun in the game. It has been a special season for them. Obviously won 11 games, first Big 12 championship. Now they have an opportunity to win 12 and they are competing against a very, very good football team in a BCS Bowl. They understand that. So I feel like our preparation has been really good and the players are looking forward to playing. Q. Has there been any difference in Bowl preparation compared to the past Bowls you have been to? COACH GUNDY: The preparation has been the same. Our players have practiced well before the break. We talked about that in Stillwater. And then once they have arrived here, we had a couple heavy practices. We backed off a little bit. We were heavy yesterday. We will be moderate today. So the preparation has been the same this year as it has been the last few for Bowl games. Q. A lot of talk, people have seen you play, they look at your defensive numbers. They say, man, they are not very good defensively. But everybody I talk to says "but" there are a bunch of turnovers that you be able to create. You have done it every game. How do you continue to get those turnovers? COACH GUNDY: Like most teams, we talked about turnovers since last spring and the importance in what we believe today's football has evolved in the direction that you have to get the ball in your offense's hands more so than it used to be because of the style of play, especially with what we do on offense. We have been fortunate each game, our defense has done a nice job of forcing turnovers. Stanford does a nice job of not turning the ball over. This will be a challenge for us especially when you are competing against a quarterback that has as much experience, as talented as he is. We need to force turnovers, get the ball on the ground, find a way to get on top of it and get our offense back on the field. Q. Do you blitz him, or are you talking about his experience, how do you approach dealing with Andrew Luck? COACH GUNDY: I think you got to do it all. He knows what's going on. In my opinion, you are not going to surprise him. He's obviously a student of the game. I'm not in their camp, but when you watch him, it is important to him. You got to try to catch him off guard some, but it is very difficult. We got a very good quarterback playing on our team. It is what it is. There is a reason why he is going to be the first player picked in the draft, because he is very good at what he does and he's had a lot of success the last couple years. Q. I'm sure you are aware of what happened in last night's game. Is there such a thing as too much offense? COACH GUNDY: Not for me, I'm an old quarterback. But I'm sure for some of those defensive guys out there, there may be too much offense. We've watched Baylor for two years. We watched them do it all season long. And there's been people talk about Baylor has ability to move the ball just against Big 12 defenses. That talk has gone across the nation. But they're really good on offense. Robert wins the Heisman Trophy, makes a lot of plays, did again last night. There are probably people that feel like there was maybe too much last night. We can only control what we do. We believe in up tempo. We try to be as productive and get as many plays and score as many points as we can. We think the fans like to see it. And we continue to work hard to try to improve in the defensive area each year. We've gotten a little bit better in defense, in my opinion, every year. Statistics may say otherwise. But we're better on defense now than we were last year and we expect to be even better in the upcoming season. Q. This is Brandon's last game. Have you given any thought to how you are going to fill the hole that Brandon is going to leave next year? COACH GUNDY: You don't really replace a guy like that. For what he has meant to Oklahoma State football, not only as a player but as a great ambassador and as a leader for us, difficult to replace a young man and what he has accomplished at Oklahoma State. He is going to leave here as the best quarterback in the history of the school. We've got young players in our program that we have a lot of confidence in. They don't have any experience, but we have been in this situation before. And once he moves on, we'll bring another one in and continue with what we have done the last few years. Q. Will you have to look in other areas and take some of the pressure off the young quarterback who is going to step in? COACH GUNDY: We are fortunate that we have good running backs coming back. We have three that played this year. Two of them have contributed considerably and are sophomores. We have a freshman that has made plays for us. We expect to bring another one in. We'll sign what would be three or four wide receiver types that can come in and contribute. We have young wide receivers in our program now that haven't played that we feel like will contribute next season. And we have enough returning offensive linemen for whoever the quarterback is to have success. Q. Is Jeremy Smith healthy? Has he been practicing this week? COACH GUNDY: He has practiced full speed the last couple days. Q. There has been one team that's given Stanford problems: Oregon. Albeit, they run more than Oklahoma State's offense, they still like to spread it out like you guys and attack the edges and speed tempo. Have you seen anything from those game tapes where you feel like you're confident you can do the same thing with the same style of tempo? COACH GUNDY: Well, tempo is similar, spread is similar, but strategy is not very similar to what Oregon does. Oregon has had success, but if you look, Oregon has had success against everybody, been very good. So there are a few things we can grab from that game. But quarterback play is so important in football, in our opinion, and the style of quarterback from‑‑ I think their quarterback's name is Thomas‑‑ and Weeden are completely different. Q. Do you feel there was another team you saw on tape that you feel like you get more strategy‑wise out of it? Is there more tape you favor like USC with Barkley or Foles with Arizona? What team stood out to you on tape? COACH GUNDY: There were similarities with SC at times, when they got in that one‑back attack. But you have 12 games to look at. So you have to pick and choose throughout the season. There are other teams that played and lined up in the same system that we have. But, again, a running quarterback, a dual‑threat quarterback, a younger quarterback for another team is not going to have as much success or not going to see things the same way that Brandon Weeden would. So you just kind of pick and choose. But, ultimately, you have to run your plays. Whatever we're good at and whatever we have had success with in the last two years, we have to be able to execute our offense. Q. Has it been a process of years to try to change what's possible for Oklahoma State football? Has it been a five‑, six‑, seven‑year deal to change and make it "we can do this attitude"? COACH GUNDY: Yes. We talked about a number of years ago when I got the job that it was going to take some time to get all the values and the hard work and things instilled in the players that we felt like we needed to have success. We had a change‑‑ multiple changes at the coordinator spot on defense. Then we've had changes on the offensive coordinator spot because guys left to be head coaches. It took about three or four years for us to finally settle in on what schemes we wanted to use on both sides of the ball. And so we're comfortable with where we're at now. But it takes some time. There's a sense urgency out there in college football because of money, the television money, the salaries for coaches. But we believe, and I believe, that it still takes more years than what people expect in order to build a program and do it the right way. Q. Do you think you grew with the program, as the program grew? You grew as a coach? COACH GUNDY: I would think‑‑ you guys have been around me for what will be going on eight years now. I changed‑‑ I feel like I changed considerably about three years ago. I grew more patient in dealing with everybody, dealing with assistant coaches, dealing with players, the discipline aspects of our team, and even dealing with the public and the media. Realizing that you can't let things get personal. It is a business for everybody, for the most part, except for the players. And so by being more patient and relaxing, I have been able to enjoy my job more and I think it has translated to the players and I think they are more comfortable and I think they play that way. Q. Can you describe how this game is having an impact on your recruiting already? COACH GUNDY: I don't know. I'm sure there are certain rules that I can't mention recruits. But we've already been contacted by players that are within a four‑hour drive of here, several of them. We don't really recruit in this area because, from a business standpoint, it is too easy us for us to just ride to Texas. It has been interesting that we have had a number of players out in this area contact us just from the last week. Q. You say three years ago you changed. Why? What caused you to change? COACH GUNDY: I'm not sure. I think I just kind of realized‑‑ well, you know, you pick your battles. It is kind of like being married. You figure that most of those you are going to lose so you might as well just get along. And you guys know this. You have worked with me for 20 years as a player and coach. Everybody has a job to do. Media has got their job to do. They have a story to report. Coaches have their job to do. The players are the ones that we want to enjoy themselves and be able to still play the game even though it is more pressure packed from them than ever. I think I finally realized that I was fighting a battle that there was no return. I was just wasting my time. Just enjoy the situation you are in. Be happy you are the head coach. Get your staff together. Let them have fun. Let your players have fun. Just enjoy where you are at and see where it takes us. Q. Looking back, those two years you were your own coordinator, do you look back and say "how did I ever do that"? COACH GUNDY: In my opinion, it is like Boone Pickens says, in order to lead a program, you have to aim and fire, you can't just keep aiming and aiming and aiming and never fire. So I felt like that I had to make quick decisions. And at that particular time, it was important for our offense to stay the same and in order for that to happen, I had to call the plays in my opinion. And so we went through that for two years and we were still pretty good on offense and had success. But when I look back on it, I know that it affected our team, but I didn't know it at that time. So would I do it again? No. It about beat me down. I was‑‑ I got down about 168 or ‑70 pounds or something. Just the wear and tear on me physically translated over into our team. And I think it made everybody‑‑ put everybody on edge. I just don't think the players play well. And that's what I was mentioning earlier. I'm so much more comfortable and relaxed with our situation now that I think it spills over into our players' attitudes, and they're enjoying being on the team more which gives us a chance to have more success. Q. When you said last year‑‑ whether you hired an offensive coordinator last year, you said it added ten years to your life. To some extent, you were being literal? COACH GUNDY: Yeah, meaning that‑‑ well, for example, everybody knows‑‑ we all work all the time. They say coaches work all the time. Everybody works all the time. You guys work all the time. But from the last week in July until February, first week in February, our coaches will never take more than two days off, and that's only during the open week. Because we will have recruiting weekends, travel, games, everything. During that time, whenever I was calling the plays, my day started at 61:5 in the film room and didn't end until 10:30, with the exception of Thursday and Friday night. That went on from whether it be August up until the end of the Bowl game. And so‑‑ and then I would try to run out of there and do the media and then run out of there and coach. So it was‑‑ to a certain extent, it was counterproductive, in my opinion. What I was referring to was, once I stopped doing that, my day starts early but there is more time from 8:00 until noon for me to sit down and think of other things which would be assistant coach situations, player situations, discipline situations, recruiting situations, media situations, fund‑raising. That allowed me to sit and think and probably make‑‑ I know for a fact it allowed me to make better decisions than I would have made if I was still calling plays. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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