The beam of pride was missing from the football coach who'd watched his team pull out a 49-45 shootout against Texas Tech.
CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:00 pm
The beam of pride was missing from the football coach who’d watched his team pull out a 49-45 shootout against Texas Tech.
Sadly, that’s how Mike Gundy felt after Oklahoma State, despite yielding a school-record 718 yards, had found a way to limit the Red Raiders’ attack to just 10 second-half points and win its Big 12 Conference opener.
By all rights, Gundy’s postgame comments on Sept. 22 should have at least revealed someone relieved with the victory.
Instead, the media witnessed a man venting, a mood swing caused by a column that had appeared in that day’s edition of The Oklahoman. And, so, instead of congratulating his team for winning, there he was, directing an emotional speech at Jenni Carlson.
Carlson had written a less-than-flattering piece about Bobby Reid being replaced by Zac Robinson as OSU’s starting quarterback. She contended that while Reid was considered to be the Cowboys’ best talent at that position, he’d lost the starting job before the previous week’s game at Troy more because of his character than Robinson’s play.
For more than three minutes, Gundy defended Reid. While chiding Carlson for kicking an amateur athlete while he was already hurting, he called her column “garbage” and said three-fourths of it was inaccurate and fiction.
Then, he stormed off without answering questions about the game, let alone giving Carlson an opportunity to explain that considering all the millions being spent to fund college football, people don’t consider the sport to be a kids’ game.
Not surprisingly, Gundy’s outburst became an instant hit on YouTube. But it still left some questions.
Like:
Would the incident cause too much of a distraction for his team? Would it spur the Cowboys to play better than they had while starting 2-2? Did the players, beyond getting some chuckles over it, really care?
Two days later, Gundy was still peeved, and admitted he wished he had said more.
“I’m tired of people downgrading college athletes that are good people,” he said. “I certainly didn’t do it to receive recognition, and I certainly don’t want to take away from this upcoming game like it unfortunately took away from the last game.”
Apparently, it didn’t.
Gundy’s team responded with a 39-3 victory against Sam Houston State, hardly unexpected, considering the Bearkats are from NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA).
Still, senior defensive end Nathan Peterson acknowledged earlier this week that the players definitely were moved by Gundy’s stance.
To have a coach defend you, “That’s always important to a player,” Peterson said. “With all the national attention it caught, it was like the outside was trying to make it a distraction for us, but we weren’t really focusing on it. We were focusing on the upcoming game.
“We knew it would die down in about a week, or so, and it did.”
Reid — who a year ago led Oklahoma State to a win against Nebraska that sparked a run to the Independence Bowl, where the Cowboys beat Alabama — found himself back in the fray last Saturday. Robinson suffered a slight concussion early in the fourth quarter of OSU’s game at Texas A&M, and Reid, on his second series, drove the Cowboys to a field goal that pulled them to 24-23.
As it turned out, thanks to a roughing-the-punter penalty, Oklahoma State never got the ball back and ended up having let a 17-0 halftime lead slip away.
Still, Peterson came away feeling like the team has improved.
“That was a much better performance, as a whole, for our defense,” he said. “All the little things we’ve been noticing, tackling and stuff like that, we’ve done a lot better on — so we’re making progress.
“And the offense, as usual, is going to continue to get better.”
This week, Oklahoma State, which ranks 14th nationally in offense and 39th in scoring, will try to end a 20-game losing streak at Nebraska that dates to 1960.
Coming off a nail-biter in a tough road environment probably helps the Cowboys more than their history in Lincoln hurts them. Either way, Peterson isn’t playing it cool as to what a win would mean.
“We know that’s one of the hardest places to play, so it would be huge for us,” he said. “We’re still in good position, especially with all the things that have happened in the (Big 12) South.
“We know there’s different things that can happen (that let) us still reach our goal as South (champs). We have our work cut out for us, and we’re going to have to win some games, but anything can happen as long as we keep progressing.”
For Peterson and, perhaps more importantly, for Gundy, that means no peeking at what’s being written about them.
“Nothing really good is going to come out of it for me, especially when we’re not playing well,” Peterson said. “I try not to pay any mind to any of that. If there’s anything good, I’m sure my mom will save it and I can read it years down the road.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.