Notes From Mike Gundy’s Big 12 Press Conference

Mike Gundy spoke with the media on Monday in Dallas. He was sporting a mullet. A real one. And it was awesome. Here are some of the highlights from his 20-minute session to officially kick off 2016.

On Mason Rudolph

“He’s continued to develop, he’s been very humble, understands the team concept, and he looks really good. His strength levels are the highest they’ve every been so we’re excited about watching him play this fall.”

Yes, his strength levels are high.

On the Future of the Big 12

“I don’t know that any of us know what direction we will go. I will say that I have a lot of faith in the Big 12 Office. Our presidents and athletic detectors through statistics and data have come to the conclusion that we need a championship game in ’17. So I’m behind them 100 percent. My only suggestion would be to make sure that the two teams that play in a championship game are the teams that have earned a right to get there and have the best records in our league.”

On Mason Rudolph and health concerns

“We won’t handle Mason any different. If we have somebody on our team that can help contribute on game day whether it would be in a package similar to what J.W. executed for us last year, some short yardage and goal line packages, then if there is somebody out there, then we will certainly take advantage of their efforts. If not, then we develop a scheme for Mason that fits those categories. It’s no question that it’s very important for us to keep Mason healthy with the way that transfers are set up in college football now.”

So you want to keep Mason healthy but you’re also going to “develop a scheme for Mason” that fits the J.W. categories. That seems contradictory.

On How Baylor Affected OSU

“Well, I think the situation at Baylor is like having a discussion with politics and religion in that there is not anything that any of us can say other than we have confidence or I have confidence in our league that we will do everything possible to try to make the best decisions possible. It hasn’t really affected us at Oklahoma State.We’ve had a pretty unique way of handling things in our program. We have a lot of confidence in it, and we always try to do the best we can. So I’m hoping in the long run it will work out for everybody.”

About as Gundy as it gets.

On the run game woes

“You’re being nice and saying we ‘struggled’ with the running game. We weren’t very good at all! When you look back at the last couple of years with our running game, we didn’t do a good job of covering guys up and giving our backs an opportunity to make cuts. We were making too many cuts behind the line of scrimmage. With our offensive line, we’ve got seven guys that I had mentioned after spring ball and I know you guys are familiar with them, that we feel like have to rotate through and give us the best opportunity for success.”

The seven: Larry Williams, Marcus Keyes, Zach Crabtree, Jesse Robinson, Brad Lundblade, Victor Salako and Michael Wilson.

On Mike Yurcich

“Mike has come a long ways. The reason that we brought Coach Yurcich to Oklahoma State is because we felt he was a young, upcoming, innovative coach and I had been very fortunate as a head coach to have that style of a coach with Larry Fedora and Dana Holgersen and Todd Monken, guys that are innovative and strong-willed and can make a decision and Mike’s fallen into that category. He’s an extremely hard worker. He’s a really, really good recruiter, and he’s turned into a very good play caller.”

It felt a little like Burns Hargis sat Gundy down in his office yesterday and said, “look, I know you’re sporting this 80s mullet and that’s fine, but this isn’t actually the 80s … please don’t go down to Dallas and just start saying whatever you want.” Gundy was more tight-lipped than I thought he would be and even offered fewer zingers than normal. But still, it was fun to hear him riff on a variety of subjects before the season starts here in about seven weeks.