1st And Football: Mike Gundy Full Interview

um I know we talked about this in Las Vegas about 20 years 20 years as a head coach how much has the game changed in those 20 years um the game kind of turns a full circle uh so when I first started as a head coach we were trying to play fast on offense Larry Fedora was our coordinator and Larry and I were together at Baylor and we talked about playing fast a lot but our head coach then didn't want to play fast and then it kind of came back around and we did that and we've had a lot of success doing that with different styles of Defense the defensive here has always changed and then we slowed down a little bit then we started playing really fast and then we slowed down a little bit and so that's turned a full circle the tight ends being in the offense out of the offense back in the offense now defense have going from four down defense is to a lot of three Downs to now multiple defense it hasn't really changed much it just kind of turns the full circle um but we've tried to stay in front of it the best we could but you have to base that on the type of players that you have you have seemed always done a really good job on the offensive side of the ball especially of staying that one step ahead forcing defenses to change to what what you're doing instead of Vice Versa is that one thing that maybe you're most proud of in your head coaching tenure so far I still go back that um I'm convinced the RPO was originated right here U people in the SEC get credit for it but we can go back to to video that we were running rpos two years before it ever got into the SEC but that doesn't make good for National media um we've stayed out in front offensively because I'm an offensive guy um it allows me to spend more time and actually know what I'm doing I have learned a lot about defense in the last six or eight years not enough to actually coach it enough to maybe help some and I think that um as we've transitioned that way um Jim nolles and I started to work together his last few years here Jim was highly intelligent as we know and would listen and make adjustments but I think that my offensive background has helped us in that area um but defensively U that's the the area that we really want to improve in because whether we like it or not the committee that picks the playoff teams they want you to be good on defense they favor defense more than offense I think it was Sunny Dykes in Las Vegas got the question about uh four down versus three down and it was interesting his answer was you would think if you're playing three down it's easier to recruit depth than it is four down but you're talking about a specific difference in the type of play player between the two aren't you it is it's it's it's actually a little more difficult in the three down because of the way you're playing your defensive lineman I don't think anybody would argue that Iowa state has perfected that side of it and they've been able to get players that fit that system when Matt rule was at Baylor they played it and they had a a real unusual player his name slips me but he played in for and he's playing in the NFL now and he allowed them to be really good in that three down set um we want to play both here uh I would like to be multiple on first and second down in the three down and four down the Personnel at times can keep you from doing that uh but I feel like now that we have the correct Personnel to be able to play both you've got a lot of talent returning on both sides of the ball but let's stay defense here with NI Martin's breakout year last year let me just start there was that something that you saw you saw this guy has this kind of a potential because that was a crazy good year last year we really liked Nick in high school he was way undersized for what people think you should recruit a linebacker to be at this level but he played really hard and he would was violent he would strike you in high school and when he got here coach glass was able to put about 30 lbs on him and obviously Nick is a worker he loves to play football and he and he kept that violent personality I don't think anybody would have seen 140 or 50 tackles coming from a guy that didn't play much the year before we've been very fortunate the last four or five years with uh Malcolm and then what Nicks bringing to the table he's a special player at this level generally speaking defensively though youve mentioned this more than once you're going to have to tackle better as a team than last year to have the succcess that you want won't you we didn't tackle very well early in the year but I told the team that was my fault I protected them a little bit more than I should have and we got into the uh first two or three games of the year and we didn't tackle very well and I I should have known better than the fact that you can't play in a game if you don't practice the same way we've heard that all of our lives but it's very true for some reason I thought that we could get away with it I was so driven on making sure that we were healthy in the first game and we didn't tackle very much and it showed our tackling improved uh about game four or five and we tackled pretty well for the rest of the season so my goal this year is to tackle really well in game one in defense in a sense if you tackle and get him down you don't drop coverage Force offenses to run 8 nine 10 11 plays in a drive and in most most cases the offenses are going to mess something up and they're going to set themselves back overall uh with such an experienced team coming back some a lot of the pluses are obvious but when you have an experienced team like this what what are the concerns the concerns are them to um be complacent in the summer Rob glass handles that so that's not a concern of mine now my job is to make sure over the next 15 days they're not complacent until we start to back off a little bit to get ready to play in the first game we'll have to put a lot of work in over the next 10 days in know in the way that we're going to handle the team to get him ready to play in the first game because we have a difficult non-conference schedule a very physical non-conference schedule and for that reason the maturity helps us because we can force feed them and we would didn't have that luxury the last few years we can get caught up really quick and then give us an opportunity to back off when we need to closer to the game Alan Bowman he's been around for a long time what do you expect Allen to be better at this year than maybe he has been in his career our system has always been driven by quarterback play for well even back when Fedora was here when we first started everything was driven by quarterback play and it's difficult to come in in our offense as a quarterback and play without much experience I'm looking to see quite a bit of improvement just because of his familiarity with our offense and the way that it's orchestrated I look to see the same thing with ran gel um ran Gale has has done some good things at times but he hasn't had a chance to get very familiar with it Bowman's played a lot now for us and I think he understands our system quarterbacks that understand our system on offense generally will have really good years two more one obviously you used the word a lot with Oly last year humble keeping him humble and given everything that he's he's gone through to this point and there's been a little time now between the incident to now um what are you seeing from him right now I know Camp's just open but what are you seeing from him so in some cases I said this um in Las Vegas that Olly is very fortunate that he ran into a terrible situation and got out and didn't hurt anybody didn't hurt himself and didn't hurt anybody else and I think it made him aware of things that could happen he's um he's going to do some volunteer work and things that we've asked him to do to make him aware of the danger and the people that have gone through that that have been tragically injured and had family members they've lost family members and at times if we can make terrible mistakes in life and get out of it without anybody being tragically injured or or uh lost gives us a chance to learn from that and make us better I think he understands that now only time will tell that's on him football-wise he has to practice harder and be more physical than he has and was last year in order for us to be successful we're going to hang our hat on what he does now defenses may choose to put everybody up there and just stop the run that's fine we have enough weapons that we can throw passes but our goal is to force him to do that we're going to let him run so he has to practice extremely hard for the next 15 days he has to get hit in practice he has to take care of the football and put himself in a position that he did last year he did that last year with nobody knowing who he was and he has to stay and practice the same way and I've told him I got to see Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas do it they did it every day M they there was never a doubt by the way they practice and he needs to practice the same way last one New Look new schools in the league a new energy and that energy you can look to one guy at least in Las Vegas and it was Deion Sanders with Colorado and he uh he had a very special word when he described you he he called you a Legend um not everybody gets called a legend by a guy who uh who kind of knows what he's talking about I mean how did that that hit you um people started texting me about it but it was interesting I don't know um coach when we went to Phoenix to the meetings one of the thing I had actually forgot about it and then when we go to the meetings I realized he was in there and um I thought this will be interesting to see how these meetings go with him being in here in the meetings um very different than what is in front of the lights um asked good questions um listened um joined in conversations and he didn't get to the position that he is now by not being a pretty smart guy um he's a genius in marketing um in promoting and the one thing that I've noticed when I read about him I read things that he says which I do all the other coaches is that um he's ultra competitive but he's in his own way and he's going to do things the way he wants to do it um it may be very unusual and some people do not want to accept that but from a distance looking because obviously I'm not in their Camp he has the ability to get people to want to migrate toward him he's been that way all of his life so um that was a uh um an interesting comment that he made but without pumping my own tires up the guy does a lot of reading and research in my opinion because you very seldom see people ask him a question that he can't comment on in an intelligent manner without a teleprompter so he generally been around the block and knows what he's talking about I we're out of time but I want to ask you this one last one um success for this team this year what does that look like in the end so offensively we need to function and just do what we've done we're going to be better than we've been in quite a while if we stay healthy we haven't been been healthy at wide receiver in three or four years um we've struggled healthwise in the offensive line off and on over the last four years that's not easy for us at Oklahoma State I feel better about our depth I feel better where we're at from a health standpoint defensively like we talked about earlier if we can avoid dropping coverage we can get in our gaps and tackle and get guys down we'll be just fine I'm really excited about our special teams we've got a number of guys returning that have covered and we have good returners um Joe Forte has done a great job um in the Special Teams area now we brought in Sean Snider brings in 30 years of experience and um our players have really enjoyed those two guys coaching them so I think we're in a good position we need the ball to bounce our way a couple times but if we're in good condition and guys will stay humble and play hard we'll be just fine