Mike Gundy Recognizes Kansas Is a Whole Lot Better Than What They’ve Been

STILLWATER – We all said this way back in September when the Kansas Jayhawks were reeling off wins over West Virginia (55-42 in OT), at Houston (48-30), Duke (35-27) and then Iowa State (14-11). The 5-0 start with lightly regarded Tennessee Tech in the lead-off spot on the schedule attracted ESPN Game Day to Lawrence for the showdown with TCU, a narrow 38-31 loss to the unbeaten Big 12 leaders.

“Well, he (Lance Leipold) has done well everywhere he’s been. He’s a good football coach, and I told you guys last year before we played them, I liked their concepts, I liked their schemes,” Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy said on Monday. “They were in games and had something go wrong at the end and could have won. Could have beaten OU last year, right? Then they beat Texas.”

Gundy complimented their crowds, their defensive effort, and like he said, he really likes the scheming that Kansas is doing on the offensive side.

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Jason Bean and KU head coach Lance Leipold.

“Their quarterback is really active, doing a really good job, throwing it, RPOing it, running it,” Gundy added. “They’re motioning (over 50 percent of the time) and getting to what I call triple option with an RPO off of it. Doing some different things, and they’re playing hard. Got to play well to beat them.”

Now, is Gundy talking about Jalon Daniels at quarterback or is he talking about current starter Jason Bean? 

Daniels, who started the first six games and was injured in the TCU game (shoulder) and has been out with talk of him being down for a month and one report out for the season. I would say that report was inaccurate because Leipold said he is back at practice during the Kansas off week last week.

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Jalon Daniels

“He’s practicing and doing some things,” Leipold said. “He was out there [Sunday], and we’ll see.”

The Cowboys don’t really have to guess who it will be as the Kansas offense operates very similar no matter which quarterback plays for the Jayhawks.

“Whoever they played quarterback would be the same for us,” Gundy said. “It would be the same for Kansas. I got bad information last Monday on who was playing, but that didn’t have anything to do with us not playing well. They’re running in the same plays with both of these quarterbacks.”

Similar to Oklahoma State. Spencer Sanders was banged up some more in Manhattan against K-State. The question begs will he answer the bell in Lawrence or will Gunnar Gundy get his first start and will Garret Rangel be on ready. There is still an (or) between Gundy and Rangel on the depth chart.

Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics

Sanders or Gundy or Rangel? Mike Gundy will keep it close to the vest as long as he can.

“The guys that we have here, all of our guys practice the same way, practice the same plays. Very similar to Kansas,” Gundy explained. “So if you look at the games that the other quarterback played in, just recently, they’re running the same plays and we run the same plays.”

No matter who it is, Oklahoma State is coming off a beating at K-State. Leipold watched it, said he sent a text to Chris Klieman congratulating him on his team’s performance. Leipold now has to play another team that is like the Bear (no pun intended) that has been poked.

“Mike Gundy is an excellent football coach, and he’s been doing this a long time,” Leipold said. “And that’s an excellent program that played for a conference championship last year. They’ll get healthy. They’ll get it corrected. And they’ll come in here ready to play, and we have to make sure we match that intensity because we know what got away from us very quickly down in Stillwater last year (55-3 loss).”

Gundy also pointed out that the Cowboys will face a crowd on Saturday. That hasn’t always been the case at KU. It is now.

“Instead of 12-15,000 people coming to the game, now they got 40-45,000 or whatever they’ve averaged,” Gundy pointed out. “It doesn’t take long. So, it’s really good for our conference and not as good for the coaches, because you got to go up and play well.”