I agree on Auburn.
Here is where I see this as a flawed argument. NU is signing classes because their coaching staff is doing what Holder stated. They are selling a vision of what they will become despite having zero data of recent success, just like Mike Boynton. It is the job of oSu to explain to recruits why NU was good before and why oSu is a better option now. oSu has concrete data on wins, bowls, etc. and still losing the argument despite having the same HC for 15 years. Remember when stability kept undermining oSu having sustained success as more profitable programs hired our successful coaches? Yet now that Gundy can do the same thing he chooses to wait until the best coaches have changed jobs to start the process.
Why did Sugar Loaf’s younger brother decide to drive past the Stillwater exit from Texas to play at NU? That answer is missing from this article. 4 players were chosen to attend 2018 media days. 3 had eligibility in 2019. Hill shut it down during the season and got drafted in the NFL. Daniels and McCleskey transferred. Phillips was the only leader to play in the bowl game.
Playing for a conference championship is a much better reward for working hard all year than a bowl game IMO. That mentality IMO is why many choose other programs.
Also, you want the media to say good things about your program. Don’t do this anymore.
Similarly, at Oklahoma State, senior receiver Jalen McCleskey decided to redshirt and take his final year elsewhere. Coach Mike Gundy said McCleskey felt he wasn’t getting the ball often enough.
This raised a number of questions for journalists to pose to McCleskey’s now-former teammates. For example: Was he getting the ball enough? Do you think Jalen put himself ahead of the team, or is he right to do what he thinks is best for himself? Do you think he’ll succeed elsewhere? What’s the mood like in the locker room? Should McCleskey be worried about being haunted by the ghost of your uncommonly vengeful mascot? Which of Coach Gundy’s life lessons do you think will help McCleskey most with his new team?
But before these issues could be explored, Gundy’s media relations coordinator showed up at the Tuesday practice shortly before players were expected to walk out. He informed reporters that if any reporter asked a player a question about McCleskey, then no players would be available to any media for the rest of the season.
In the moment, reporters acquiesced; they didn’t raise the questions. And then, according to the Daily O’Collegian:
The original decision that we all came to agreement on was that we would put a disclaimer in our story explaining the threat and why we didn’t ask players about McCleskey’s transfer.
Then we were notified there could be repercussions for reporting on Gundy’s threat.
We then contacted [the media relations coordinator], who urged media members to leave the threat out of the story to avoid possible consequences. However, if anyone asked why we didn’t ask players about McCleskey, we could choose to cite Gundy’s threat as our reasoning.
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As long as Mike Gundy is the coach it’s not going to make much difference. He doesn’t have it in his mindset that to beat the LandSquatters you have to take chances and have a game plan that’s not predictable. And a defense that has good tackling skills. But better offensive play calling gives us at least a chance to win that game last Saturday.
Some of us who are true college football fans remember him.
It’s not going to happen much due to the round-robin format. Very unlikely any Big 12 team is going to go undefeated due to that.
@tomg I agree with most of what you had to say and not to belittle your nice comments but we lost little when McCleskey decided to leave.
+100 The Big 12 format puts its teams (and even Texas and OU) at a disadvantage compared to the other Power 5 conferences.
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You can be a “true football fan” and not remember someone who last coached in 1972.
I will say, looking on Wikipedia, the emailer undersold what he did at Nebraska. I’d say 8 conference titles and back to back national titles is more than making them “good.”
In today’s environment, Osbourne would have been fired after only getting one conference title in 5 years following Devaney. Oh and 0-fer against OU in that time frame.
This article was exactly right. Does no one here remember 2011? When the voting came down to whether it was Alabama or OSU playing LSU for the title? I do. I remember the one voter who said he was voting for Alabama because of their history where he’d never HEARD of OSU. Records be damned, it was history that matter to that pollster. As it does to most. For the last decade, every year we hear how Texas has great recruiting classes, that “Texas is BACK!”, Texas is ranked to start the season - and then boom, they fall flat on their faces. Why do they keep getting ranked? Because they’re Texas. When reporters, coaches, and other pollsters start thinking of OSU as having good teams year in, year out - that’s when we’ll see things really turn around. Took Auburn and Oregon decades to do it. Why would OSU be any different?
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The foundation definitely needs to be built and I think it is starting to show. The playoff committee had oSu as the only 3 loss team in their first rankings (the AP and Coaches had Texas A&M not oSu but those polls don’t matter). Would like to see that translate to better recruiting rankings but I would rather Gundy recruit the guys he knows will buy into the culture and not run at the first sign of adversity.
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I don’t see it that way. McCleskey’s selection by Gundy to attend media days had nothing to do with his potential impact on the field. Media day selections for Gundy IMO aren’t about who the media want to interview. It is an honor given to those players who represent the Cowboy culture Gundy wants to project. When those type of guys leave it is concerning IMO. More so because he went to Gundy about the issue and decided to leave when he got Gundy’s answer. I see a thread connecting this event to Grayson Boomer’s departure recently. oSu has gone from a top 10 offense to top 50 and we are driving away talent with a conservative approach. Wearing out the best talent before season’s end and not utilizing the available talent is frustrating to watch.
Absolutely great article. “After all, only nine teams have made the CFP.” Think about that for a moment. Nine in what, 5 years? And how many of those have been repeats? Bama, Ohio State, and Clemson come to mind…along with OU, which is 70 miles down the road. Just four teams.
OSU’s problems are all these things, plus one giant crimson one down the road. Name recognition, recruiting, and geography. Gundy is doing what he has to do, what he can do to change the first two. And has. The last decade has borne that out regardless of what all our Gundy hating fans say. If he can continue to improve those two, it will help with the third. But I am not sure anything can be done about our Sooner problem save a coaching change there that goes bottoms up. Let’s hope Riley replaces whatshisname at Arizona.
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We do have an osu problem. Our stadium holds like 60000 ou holds closer to 90000. We play a terrible out of conference schedu!e every year. Ou plays the likes of USC and\or Ohio state. Until we play th Nebraska or the Maryland’s or the fsu and win these games year in and year out no one is going b to care about osu. And why should they? No one cares if you are beating up on McBride or Boise or Oregon state. If we want recognition we need to beat recognisable teams
Why should these recognizable teams schedule OSU?
But see that is the catch 22 caused by the same problem of us not being seen as a power. None of those big time teams you mention want to play us on anything of a fair basis (most would want a 2 for 1 or even a 3 for 1), or not at all. I mean they see beating us as not that big of a deal nationally and losing to us as a season killer. OU on the other hand is different perceptually. A win against them is big and a loss is not that much of a problem.
Our best chance of those type of games is the ones the ESPN sets up for neutral sites like when we played FSU awhile back.
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It is my understanding that Gundy got control of the schedule during contract negotiations. Holder wants these game and can get them. The reason programs want to schedule oSu is they want a quality win to help their resume and get into the CFP.
Zero programs became blue bloods by winning 9.4 games per year. oSu lost 4 games this year playing 5 ranked opponents. At the end of the season 2 of those teams remain ranked. Utah played (1) ranked team and lost (#24 USC). When they get left out of the playoff, as a result, they will wish they played a better non conference schedule.
Interesting thing is 0u and Utah both played weak non-conference schedules this year. Same for Georgia, although they had Notre Dame (but one less conference game).
Totally agree with this. When Gundy decided to go for 2 last year, I was actually really happy with that decision, regardless of the result. It showed he wasn’t going to go quietly into the moonlight.
And we had the momentum so why not go for 2 ? It was ballsy, we left it all on the field and that’s really what I think we are asking for . We want that fire !
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I’m a Colts fan, so follow me on this…
Remember the 2010 Super Bowl, Saints vs. Colts? The onsides kick to open the second half? Haunts me still. But in retrospect, that took an insanely large set of balls to do, especially in that game. And it was executed perfectly (Hank Baskett’s career was all but demolished on that one play).
Of course, the Colts shot themselves in the foot a lot that game, and Peyton had his typical “recoil” moments. But the Saints turned the momentum in a very defiant and emphatic manner.
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Osu athletics has to give them whatever incentive it takes. It helps us more than them so it a prolly gonna cost us. I ok with giving up a 2-1 or something to play Georgia again. It lots of other power 5 teams. Even away games give us exposure against quality teams