A Clearer Outline of Saturday's Cowboy Spring Game
STILLWATER – On Wednesday afternoon Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy made an appearance on Sirius-XM’s Big 12 Network Channel 375 with ESPN’s Holly Rowe and Oklahoma sideline analyst and former center Gabe Ikard. It was Gundy’s first appearance on the program and the hosts were cranked up.
Gundy complimented Holly Rowe on her attitude and her excitement about college football looking to return to normalcy, a sentiment that Gundy has been pushing all spring.
Related: Take a look at the rosters and projected depth chart for the Spring Game
“Holly, your attitude has me excited and I know we’ve been pushing toward that here for a while,” Gundy commented.
Rowe said she was excited about what Oklahoma State was doing with the spring game and asked Gundy to get in-depth about it.
“What we decided was we wanted to give the fans an hour and a half of really good entertainment,” Gundy started describing the game and how they came up with the format in his own words. “We sat down and talked about it. All the parents will be there so everybody is going to get to play a fair amount of time. We feel like the fans want to see a glimpse of the Spencer Sanders, the Tyler Lacys, the (Tanner) McCalisters, and the (Tay) Martins and LD Browns so those guys will get three series or so and then we’ll roll some of the younger guys in.
“We decided to use two halves, 20 minutes each, and then take about a five-minute break in between and stay on the field,” Gundy continued. “We feel when you have a real halftime in a spring game, and this is just our opinion that it kind of loses its’ luster. You come back out and it is kind of a drag. We’ll announce our former players. We have 200 former players (Legends) that are going to be here for the game. Then we’ll come back and play the second 20-minute half. We will operate the clock the way you would in a game and not use a running clock. That is why we shortened it from a 60-minute game to a 40-minute game. We’ll run the clock accordingly and then we’ll score the game like you would a normal game. We think it will be as close to a (normal) football game as it could be.
Related: 5 Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s Spring Game
“We’ll do a little seven-on-seven before just so the fans can see all the wideouts and quarterbacks and then we’ll play the game,” Gundy added about the opening act on Saturday which will begin right at noon. “We’re counting on an hour and a half excitement. When you think of the moms there with kids and such they can go eat lunch after and then I think we play Texas in baseball and do some other stuff, so the moms aren’t sitting there the whole time wondering when it going to end.
“We think it will be very fan friendly and we think they will enjoy the game,” he concluded.
Here is a link to our story with depth charts for the Orange and Black team matchups on offense and defense.