Gundy and Diaz Talk Cheez-It Bowl
STILLWATER – The folks at the Cheez-It Bowl and the organization that puts the game on had a congratulatory Zoom conference with the two head coaches on Sunday afternoon. This is going to be a different bowl game with media attending by invitation only, teams will travel to the event and stay much like a normal road game with limited activities. COVID-19 continues to dominate decisions, but like the regular season, maybe not normal, but the games, most of them will go on.
“We’re excited about being in a big-time bowl game and I don’t follow the rankings, but I think Miami has been a top-10 or top-15 team all year,” Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy said. “We’ve had a great season (of competition) with Big 12 Conference and then Tulsa being our first non conference game and they had a great year and now we follow it with Miami. We’ve been able to play some really good football teams and now I’m excited to compete against Miami.”
Miami has former Houston quarterback and a real NFL prospect in D’Eriq King. He is both he leading rusher and the top passer for Miami. He is the guy that dominates their offense and unlike sack leader Jaelan Phillips who opted out of the bowl game, Miami head coach Manny Diaz, the former Texas defensive coordinator for Mack Brown from 2011-2013, feels that King will play in the game.
“We are delighted to be invited to the Cheez-It Bowl and to take our team back to one of the best bowl destinations in the country,” said Diaz of the invite. “It will be a great match-up with a team like Oklahoma State and he has built a great program there in Stillwater. I think it will be a great match-up that people will want to watch.”
Motivation is often the deciding influence for bowl games. Miami will be closer to home and will bus to Orlando. Oklahoma State players have been enthused in the two practices last week and they were back at it Sunday evening. Diaz feels his team will be motivated coming off a blowout 62-26 loss to North Carolina. Oklahoma State won big at Baylor 42-3 and Gundy is fiving his players several days to be home for Christmas. He cited how much they’ve sacrificed.
“We will have our guys together for about three days of practice and then we’re going to let our guys go home for about three days for Christmas,” Gundy said of the schedule and then we will get back together for a day and then take off for the bowl. This will be more like a normal week for us with three practice and then we thought it was more important for our players to go home and spend Christmas with their families. That was more important for the program based on all the things the players have dealt with because of the virus.”
“Our guys have a bad taste in their mouth, so I think they want to get that bad taste out of their mouth,” Diaz added. “It’s a situation where all the things going on back then in the Big 12 are now what is going on all over college football. Coach Gundy and some of the other coaches back then were on the cutting edge with spread football and RPO game. They were able to make it difficult on defenses. They have a great wide receiver, and it will be a challenge for us.”
Even Sunday afternoon as bowl match-ups were being announced, there were other bowls being cancelled. It is far from a normal year, but the folks in Orlando, who also put on the Citrus Bowl with No. 14 Northwestern taking on unranked Auburn, are working to make it as normal as possible.
“We will meet every protocol with our facility so we can fill 20-to-25 percent of it with fans and can have some kind of atmosphere for the kids to send them off in their last game, the ones that are moving on,” said Steve Hudson, the CEO of Florida Citrus Sports the organization that runs the Cheez-It Bowl. “We’ve spared no expense on the hotel and we have given them mostly two and three day options to stay in the bubble on their property. National championship-style hospitality for the guys and they will have an opening party, but these are for mostly for the guys and they will not interact with volunteers or engaging with Orlando folks like they normally would.”
Welcome to bowl season pandemic style.