First Game with Tablets, Gundy Believes His Team Knew How to Use Them and Did

STILLWATER – Kind of a typical Monday except it was Labor Day, a holiday for many folks. Football coaches, later players, and media members are working. The Cowboys practice on Mondays and Sunday is the day off. Oklahoma State beat top-ranked FCS and two-time defending national champion at that level, South Dakota State 44-20 and with all day Sunday to study the video, Head coach Mike Gundy hadn’t notice a lot more from what he saw on the sidelines Saturday. 

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Gundy on Monday at his weekly news conference.

“We ran the ball OK, not good enough,” Gundy started at his press conference. “Defensively, we had 49 plays and gave up 174 yards and we had six plays where we gave up 210 (yards). Which is what I thought afterwards, so I was kind of close with my math. We tackled better than we tackled last year early in the season, but not good enough. As I mentioned, I was pleased with the discipline of our team — turnovers, penalties, negative yard plays.”

Gundy is one of those rare people that sees the game well from the sidelines. I know I always have to go back and watch the video on Sunday to fully understand what was in fromt of my eyes on Saturday (or Friday-twice later this season).

NFL

Sideline tablets, in college each team gets 15 tablets to use either upstairs in coaching booth or on the sidelines.

For the first time last Saturday, Gundy, his coaches, and his players were able to use tablets on the sidelines (Microsoft Surface-same as the NFL) to watch video immediately after playing those plays on the field. I watched as coaches like Joe Bob Clements and Paul Randolph on defense and Tim Rattay and Tylan Wallace on offense went over plays with players between series.

“We had that discussion yesterday and it was all pretty smooth,” Gundy answered when asked how the process of coaching with the tablets went. “I’ll be honest with you, much smoother than what I thought it would be with all the new technology during the game with so many other things going on. The newness of it was a real concern of mine, and it actually still is now, but we didn’t have many glitches, and I was pleased with the way that it came through.” 

Now, on the sidelines I noticed that it wasn’t just coaches showing players with the tablets. On the defensive side of the sidelines I saw Lyrik Rawls, Korie Black, Dylan Smith, and Kobe Hylton all looking at tablets together. I saw Iman Oates and Jaleel Johnson with Kody Waleterscheid looking at video. There were offensive players doing the same.

“Were you able to go look and see if they were watching YouTube or actually watching the game? Now a days, these kids will probably try to pull YouTube up to watch some goofy video,” Gundy joked. 

No, I did not see anything other that football video. The first time ever that could be used in games. I find it amazing. Gundy said if the players are of the right mind that it can be amazing.

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Oates on the pass rush vs. SDSU.

“If I see something that they (coaches) are asking me about like maybe I missed a gap then I can show them what I was seeing and why I did what I did,” defensive tackle Iman Oates said after practice on Monday. “Then they can give me pointers or adjust  on the fly. It helps me know what I’m seeing from the offensive linemen (opponent), what kind of block or what kind of scheme we are getting.”

“Smart players will go back and continue to watch the game. It’s like taking a cheat sheet into the test, so you can go and look and see what all the answers are and then go back out and play,” Gundy explained and then used a story from his past to illustrate. 

“I had a couple of teachers in high school that had a really good approach of teaching,” Gundy started. “They said, here is the material I want you to learn over the next two weeks. I’m gonna lecture on this, and I’m gonna give you the material with the answers, and then I’m gonna give you the test two weeks from now on Friday. That’s probably the best teaching procedure there is in my opinion because whatever material he wanted us to learn, he gave us the answers. So who cares? He lectured on it, gave us the answers, you studied it, you paid attention, you made an A. If you didn’t, you made whatever is accordingly and in the end you learned the information that he wanted you to every two weeks.”

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Collin Oliver with a sack in the third quarter.

“Well that’s what those tablets do,” Gundy continued. “The information is right there in the tablet. So you can look at it and get it, it’s a cheat sheet to go back out, or you can not look at it, not absorb the information and go out and figure it out on your own.”

Come to think of it I saw Collin Oliver looking at the tablet in the second half. Oliver was close to making plays in the first half. He has great speed, strength, and ability. In the second half maybe he picked up the answers some by watching the previous plays on the tablet. It is dangerous to be armed with those answers. Learning to use those well could likely help win games week-to-week. Life is better and so is football when you know the right answers.