Mike Gundy Notebook From His Time at the Podium
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FRISCO, Tx. – Day two of Big 12 Media Days down in Frisco, TX, and this is the first time really anyone has gotten a chance to talk with Oklahoma State head coach, Mike Gundy, since the end of spring football, certainly since all the players have showed up on campus.
Mike was up at the podium in the morning, and here’s a quick recap of some of the topics he hit on.
Coach Gundy on quarterback the quarterback battle.
“Well, obviously, it’s different, we don’t have a quarterback that’s ever played a snap for us. We’ve got a little bit of familiarity with a couple of guys coming through spring, but it’s one of the things of the future of college football that’s a little bit scary is you don’t have as many guys in that room as you’d want to. I think coach [Doug] Meacham and our staff understand the importance in finding out who gives us the best chance to win and building our offense around that system.”
Coach Gundy on how the offseason in Stillwater’s has been.
“The offseason for us has been crazy. Obviously, we know about all the changes in college football and, for the most part, live day to day. Players coming in, players going out, recruiting. For me, it was extremely busy: new staff, new coordinators. Those guys bring in their own staff. We have 65 new players. 35 of them, we’ve never seen practice before, and they just showed up in June. 18 of those are transfers and the other are high school players. It’s a very unusual experience. They’ve done really well over the last four to five weeks in offseason, but August practice will be more important now than it ever has been based on the new faces.”
Coach Gundy on trying to make sure there’s cohesion on the team before fall camp.
“Whenever I used to go on vacation in July, I used to have a really good idea of what the team was going to be, and in most cases, who the quarterback was going to be. I’m going to try and go on vacation here in a week or so and I’m not sure I know who the starters in eight of the 22 spots, that’s not counting special teams. So, it’s very unusual. The coaches understand that it’s gonna have to happen faster in August this year than it ever has been before so we can create some identity, hopefully develop some team chemistry and get ready to play in the first game.”
