Gundy Still Gets That Big Game Feel - This One Is a Big Game
STILLWATER – Chalk this up in the never gets old category. Mike Gundy has played in as a quarterback and now coached in as a position coach, offensive coordinator, and head coach a lot of big football games. Back in the day most of those games with Gundy on the field started at 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon, the old popular Big Eight kickoff time before television decided when 99 percent of the teams kicked off. Gundy has to be happy as the Cowboys are working on their third straight 2:30 p.m. kickoff and Homecoming with Texas next week at Boone Pickens Stadium will make it four in a row in the middle of the afternoon.
“Yeah, 2:30 is a good kickoff time,” Gundy said of his preference for a start time. “Gives fans a chance to tailgate and come here and enjoy themselves, and you can watch the game and not go home real late. Everybody gets to get home before 10 and things like that. It’s the ideal time for college football … 2:30s are my choice. You get good coverage on the east coast, good coverage on the west coast.”
Important for a big game and one of three this week between unbeaten and highly ranked teams. There is Alabama at Tennessee and Penn State at Michigan. The Cowboys and TCU are both 5-0 and both have offenses that can crank it up. Overall, they are both averaging 46.4 points per game. In Big 12 play where TCU has played the worst defensive team in the conference in Oklahoma and Kansas and Oklahoma State has played Baylor and Texas Tech the Frogs are averaging 46.5 points a game and the Cowboys 38.5 per game. TCU has a whopping 560-yards a game on offense and OSU a more modest 406.5-yards average in the two games.
The defenses may not be suffocating, but they play along with the offense and are capable of explosive defensive plays. It has a big game feel to it, no doubt.
“I think so. When you have a lot of hype, there’s a feeling in pregame warmup that’s different than without that,” Gundy said of the feel. This one has to feel a lot like the Big 12 opener at Baylor, also a rematch of the 2021 Big 12 Championship Game. “I think I still feel that (big game vibe). So, I guess my answer would be yes, yeah. I always hear coaches say, ‘Yeah, this is what I coach for,’ and some players say, ‘This is what I play for,’ like a one vs. two or six vs. five or whatever.
“I like the 28-point spread games better,” Gundy joked. “They’re much more enjoyable for me. But when we’re in these games and the pregame and getting going and the crowd and the pageantry of college football is pretty special.”
Gundy admits these games are special. The biggest difference is he handles them with a lot calmer than earlier in his coaching career. In fact, ESPN Game Day’s Chris “The Bear” Fallica came up with that stat before the Baylor game that with the result against Baylor added in is that Gundy in games where Oklahoma State ranges between a 3.5-point favorite and a 3.5 underdog in games since 2011 he is 14-3 and in those same games on the road since 2016, Gundy is now 13-2. Easy to say he has enjoyed those well-hyped close games between ranked teams.
“I coached 11 years as an assistant and never coached on a winning team,” Gundy said of his assistant days first at Oklahoma State and then at Baylor and Maryland. “My first 11 years of coaching as an assistant I had a losing record. I learned to appreciate what’s going on now because I had the other side for a long time. The famous line that Todd Monken used to say, and he was dead on … ‘it doesn’t make a difference if you’re coaching in the NFL, you’re coaching Power Five, Division-V, Division-II, JUCO, or Division-XVI, or high school, if you’re losing, it’s no fun. If you’re winning, it’s fun.’ When you think about that, he’s exactly right. Us having as much success as we’ve had for a long period of time makes it better, and it keeps you in the game, keeps you coaching, keeps you wanting to do it.”
Gundy has never coached against new TCU head coach Sonny Dykes, who in Gundy’s success description is a very accomplished head coach. Gundy said he is impressed by those coaches that go different places and succeed at all of them, then that is a good coach. Dykes has done that at Louisiana Tech, then Cal, and SMU. Now he is off to a 5-0 start at TCU. Gundy has never coached vs. Sonny Dykes, buy remembers coaching as an assistant against his dad, Spike Dykes.
“Just like his dad, he had tremendous success out there and was good at what he did,” Gundy said of Sonny Dykes. “I coached against him when I was at Baylor, and they wacked us. They were good at what they did, and outside looking in, he’s got some of those principles, whatever. He’s been good and had success everywhere he’s been.
“Obviously I’ve watched them from a distance, but I haven’t crossed paths with him much in recruiting or such. But he’s done well,” Gundy added. “They’re playing really, really good. Obviously did a good job at SMU, but don’t know a lot about him personally.”
Gundy may know more about Dykes defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie. The former boss of the Tulsa defense. Oklahoma State has been challenged the last two times they’ve seen his defense. Advantage knowing Gillespie’s schemes?
“It’s the same for them though. He’s going to feel like he has a good concept of us in his approach,” Gundy answered. “Obviously ours will be the same with him. Personnel could vary here and there. Same defense, same concepts in the back end and such.”
This time a much bigger game with ABC taking it to the entire nation.