Oklahoma State Fall Camp - Mike Gundy Opens Up About Bryan Nardo

STILLWATER – Continuing the theme of defense on this Friday, an off day for the players as far as practice in fall camp, Mike Gundy had some duties outside football. Gundy came by Triple Play Sports Radio in downtown Stillwater and was on Casey Kendrick’s “TV31 at One” show. Gundy has not spoke with the media since the football media day on Aug. 2. He has been a parent at Stillwater High School with Kendrick as their kids played football and baseball together. Kendrick’s son Talon was a walkon linebacker at Oklahoma State last season and is now on scholarship at UCO.

Kendrick asked Gundy about a lot of different topics, some on OSU football and some off. This one was interesting. “If you were to go coach at another school someday, do you see yourself hiring Bryan Nardo as an assistant?”

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Gundy hasn’t spoken with the media since Aug. 2.

“That’s a great question,” Gundy responded immediately. “Bryan was put in a bad situation by me. As a coach my job is to look back at what happened, I do it every year. Now, I’ve gotten better at it over the last 10-or-12 years. I think it takes six-or-seven years to become a good head coach. I look back every year and I see this was good, this was good, and I’m not sure if that was good at all.

“When I brought him here,” Gundy continued. “We had had tremendous success (overall) and I didn’t let him bring anybody with him.”

The previous defense under Jim Knowles, who had left for Ohio State, had played well. Knowles did not take any assistants with him, but I don’t think any of them wanted to leave and some wanted the job Knowles departure left open. Gundy wanted to go to a three-man front and Nardo had that system.

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Gundy said it wasn’t Nardo’s fault. He got little help from his inherited assistants.

“He was a three-down coach, three-down with a rover. He came in and tried to implement his system was no help,” Gundy said. “I didn’t let him bring anybody in with him that knew his system. He had coaches here, but those coaches weren’t bilingual. He needed them to be bilingual in a three-down front. The first year we ended up going to the Big 12 Championship. Ollie Gordon hought he was superman and everybody else followed and we rolled. The next year I changed him and pushed him into going into a four-down front and we couldn’t get it accomplished. That part of it was as much my fault as Bryan’s. I’ve told Bryan that.”

There was not an answer in there, but Kendrick gave Gundy another chance.

Gundy confimed that he could coach for him again.

“Here’s how I give you an answer for Bryan Nardo,” Gundy added. “He is a good football coach and he got caught in a situation that did not allow him to have success. Don’t be upset at Bryan, be upset with me. Bryan did everything he could and everything I asked him to do. He was too young and to inexperienced to come in and coach the entire defense on his system without help.” 

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Nardo coaching at Charlotte.

Nardo is now at Charlotte coaching linebackers. Oddly enough, that is where new defensive line coach Ryan Osborn came from. He was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Charlotte last season. Osborn is one of five position coaches or quality control coaches that new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham was allowed to bring with him. You get the feeling that Grantham wasn’t coming without guys that had coached his defensive system. 

Gundy agrees that is the way to go.

“I’ve had a good run in my career of bringing in coordinators, so every once in a while a guy is going to be wrong,” Gundy said. “We have gone through a huge change. The way we did it there was no other way around it.

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Todd Grantham is a veteran SEC and NFL defensive coordinator.

“When we went out in spring, I had no idea what these guys could do. I hadn’t seen any of them coach except Doug Meacham (offensive coordinator). All the defensive guys, I had no idea what those guys could do, but I can tell you know that I’m very pleased with what we have and I’m very pleased with where we’re at.”

That is good news heading into the final weekend of fall camp with practices on Saturday and Sunday morning before school starts on Monday.