UPDATE: Hauss or No Hauss, That's One of the Questions as Meacham Talks Kansas State
STILLWATER – Doug Meacham looked refreshed, looked ready to speak to the media in what certainly hasn’t been a dream trip as the interim head coach at Oklahoma State. Meacham has been able to put his best face on what has been a difficult situation. Oklahoma State, not all with Meacham on board, has lost 17-of-their-last-18 games. They’ve lost 15 Big 12 Conference games in consecutively. This season none of those games have been close at the end, some in the middle, but not the end. Last week’s open week was needed.
“It's an opportunity to reset for sure,” Meacham said opening his weekly news conference. “You take this week that we just had off, and it's an opportunity to reflect back on what's occurred and re energize and remember what's important. You know what's important is these kids right now. Just got to reflect and think about what's the most important thing is those kids.”
Meacham reinterated that he and the staff are trying to make the players feel wanted and give them the best experience possible and help them improve. He even stated we need to make sure the next staff has the opportunity to keep them in the program if they want them here.
It’s a little morbid to talk about working to help the next staff, but that’s what it is.
At the beginning of the season, Meacham was the offensive coordinator and the original plan was for the Cowboys offense to have both Zane Flores and the even speedier Hauss Hejney available to bounce off each other and use in combination to make the offense versatile and explosive. Unfortunately, both quarterbacks have been hurt, Hejny with a “Jones” fracture of the foot before halftime of the opener.
Flores had his best game at Kansas, and Hejny was there and the question is will he be on the field as soon as the Kansas State game on Saturday.
“I'm gonna talk to him. I'm not sure,” Meacham said of Hejny. “So anything I tell you at this point it won't be accurate, because I don't know for sure, but we're gonna soon have a conversation to see where he is. And I know last week, the Tuesday and Wednesday practices, he was jogging and throwing some balls and moving around a little bit. So we'll see.”
UPDATE: Hejny was suited up fully for practice and participated but did not take reps with the offense. On the Cowboy Football Radio Show, Meacham told Dave Hunziker that it would not be this week likely that hejny could play. He did not rule out Hejny for the final two games.
Hejny showed interest as he was a cheerleader on the sidelines making the trip to KU for the 38-21 loss. Hejny was involved and threw on the field before the game, during timeouts, and when he could.
What does Hauss making the trip to Lawrence say about him?
“It says a lot about him as a person, how much it means to him and that he's not going to waste any opportunity he can get to try to help us,” Meacham said careful not to go further. “He's on the sidelines, bringing guys on and it’s the way it used to be. So it kind of makes you feel good to know there's still guys out there like that, that care about the school and they feel there's gratitude for where they are.”
Flores is ready and showed he’s playing his best at this point. The question this week is will Hejny join him or sit out the final three games?
In case you are wondering if this team is just going through the motions, the answer we got Monday is they aren’t.
“You know we just try to stay together as a team and work toward that one win each week,” said now starting safety Raymond Gay II. “We have a saying that we’re going to get a win this week. We are in that mindset that we can go out and get a win this week as long as we work hard.”
“We talk about it all the time, offense and defense, Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday that we want to win this game, edge and outside linebacker Wendell Gregory said. “We really want to fight and battle to get that win.”
They may be the only believers in the stadium, but I’ll stand with them. I do it every week.
