STILLWATER – As long as I’ve known Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy and that goes back 38-years when he was quarterbacking Midwest City. Gundy will still brag about his high school coaches with the Bombers in head coach Dick Evans and the offensive coordinator Ron Smith. Throughout his college coaching career Gundy has often said that the smartest coaches aren’t necessarily in the NFL or major college but there are really good coaches in small college, junior college, and a ton of them in high school. Now, Gundy is facing one of those guys in Texas Tech’s first-year head coach Joey McGuire.
"Well, I bumped into him when he was a high school coach,” Gundy answered when asked if they had crossed paths. “Obviously when we recruited players at his school (Cedar Hill). They always had six, seven, or eight players at his school every year. So, I'd run into him down there. But other than that, haven't crossed paths with him at all."
Later in the Monday news conference, Gundy’s dogs that were out in the hallway of the Suites level to Boone Pickens Stadium starter barking.
“That must be Joey McGuire around here,” Gundy joked at his dogs barking out in the hallway. “That’s my dogs. They know who he is.”
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Joey McGuire at Cedar Hill High School.
When he got to Baylor as head coach Matt Rhule knew McGuire. He dipped into the Texas high school coaching ranks for some assistants that would give him a head start on recruiting in-state talent. Cedar Hill’s Joey McGuire was one of those guys. Rhule left for the NFL and the Carolina Panthers and McGuire was kept by new Baylor head coach Dave Aranda. Then last fall in the middle of the season the Red Raiders fired their head coach Matt Wells even though he had a winning record (Tech would go on to a bowl game). Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt hired McGuire. It was as if the Red Raiders knew who they wanted.
Now, Gundy and his staff prepare for McGuire’s 3-2 Red Raiders and you won’t find a lot of carry over from playing McGuire’s former boss and team when Tech comes to town on Saturday.
"Offensively and defensively, we've got several games, just like they have us on. In most cases coaches are going to prepare based off what they've seen and try to avoid chasing ghosts. Sometimes I get a feel for head coaches based on experience and what you're talking about. Like we've talked about the last couple of weeks, guys that want to roll the dice on fourth down and guys that want to play field position, just a little bit different personality.
The only commonality is McGuire uses analytics and like Aranda, likes to go for it on fourth down a lot. On offense and defense, the Red Raiders are a vastly different team.
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Zach Kittley is the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech. He is one of the latest spread gurus.
“This will be a different challenge this week. This team is throwing it 60-ish times a game,” Gundy said of Tech on offense with former Western Kentucky offensive coordinator Zach Kittley calling plays. “It's a different look for our defense. Last week we played a group that was more power running, misdirection passing, play-action passing. These guys (Texas Tech) are going to play fast, they're going to spread out, they're going to throw it 60 times and try to get the ball out to the flat."
It helps that Gundy’s defense is showing vast improvement. Communication in the secondary and being sound in coverage will be critical. It also helps that the Cowboys are deep on the defensive line because they will be rushing Texas Tech quarterback Donovan Smith, a big athletic thrower. They will be looking for him as stated close to 60 times on Saturday.
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Defensive Line depth will come in handy on Saturday vs. Texas Tech.
"That's (depth) always going to important. Good news is we really don't have anybody playing more than 42, maybe 43 snaps per game, which is really good,” Gundy said. “We'd like to keep it that way. We're getting into a game here where there very well could be 100 plays on both sides of the ball from the standpoint (that) we play fast and they play fast. That depth could be important."
You think Kitley runs a complicated show on offense? Well, you haven’t seen anything until you see the Texas Tech defense under coordinator Tim DeRuyter. Oklahoma State saw him previously when he was the defensive coordinator at Texas A&M. DeRuyter is running as many as six different personnel groups and blitzing close to 50 percent of the time. He’s also running stunts close to 50 percent, sometimes with blitzes and sometimes as the major disruption for the offense to deal with.
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Oklahoma State first crossed paths with DeRuyter when he was at Texas A&M.
“Well, his background is that way. (DeRuyter has) done that for a while,” Gundy added. “He's been around a long time. He's a smart football coach. He does a lot of things and just different philosophies, right? You know, (Dave) Aranda wants to play this front, this way, this gap, this coverage, and this is what I'm doing. And you get a variety of a lot of stuff from him and he wants to blitz and pressure and that's what he's going to do in this game. He's gonna come after you and he's gonna do it a lot of different ways. You know, there's times guys (receivers) get cut loose when you do that. It's just a different philosophy and he's going to certainly go opposite of what you just saw on Saturday (at Baylor)."
