Mike Gundy's Comments were Embarrasing and Unprofessional
Posted on January 11, 2012 by Jacob Bunn
With all due respect to the head coach of Oklahoma State, his team did not qualify for the BCS Championship Game. That should be the end of the story, but he felt the need to put his opinion in newspapers across the United States.
Mike Gundy gave a quote to USA Today to the effect that he argued his team would have thrown it more against Alabama or LSU had it been in the championship game. He also said he believed that most of America would have rather seen OSU in the game.
While I am sure that Gundy's intentions were to make the argument for his team’s benefit, it was not a good point for him to have made. His team did not deserve to be in the game. The reason for this is obvious: When Oklahoma State had a sizeable lead on Iowa State, which ended with a losing record, it blew the game and allowed the Cyclones to win in double-overtime.
Before the title game, coach Gundy was complaining about Alabama getting into the game. After the game, he implied that his team would have put up a better fight to the Crimson Tide. My question to Gundy is which argument is it going to be?
The truth is that if his team would have played either LSU or Alabama, it would have been beaten soundly.
How can I say that? Look at BCS Championship Game history and decide whether or not big defense wins against spread offenses on a consistent basis.
Oklahoma has been beaten twice in the BCS title game. The most recent loss was to Florida in 2008, and the first one was at the hands of another SEC school, LSU, in 2003.
Colt McCoy probably knows a thing or two about the difference between Big 12 and SEC tackling. So, you can add Texas to the list of failures against the SEC.
Oregon’s offense is hyped from coast to coast, but it failed against Auburn’s defense last year. The Ducks were also run out of the building against LSU at the beginning of this past year.
Does anybody legitimately believe that Oklahoma State would have been able to put up enough points to win on the scoreboard against either defense?
Kansas State, which many were counting as a quality win for Oklahoma State, was trounced by Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl. Don’t forget that Arkansas was beaten by 24 points by both Alabama and LSU.
Let me also remind Cowboy fans that your conference, the Big 12, has placed two non-conference champions into the BCS Championship Game. So that disqualifies the argument about Alabama needing winning the SEC Championship to get in.
The bottom line is that Gundy should not have said what he did after the championship game. If he really wanted to support his team, he would have been better served by touting his team’s achievement of beating Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl. Instead, he added his name to an illustrious list of BCS whiners.
Actually, I think the BCS did Gundy and Oklahoma State a favor by not putting them in the ring with one of the two suffocating defenses from the SEC. It would have been a depressing end to a miraculous season for the Cowboys.
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Email Jacob at jacob@bunnsports.com and follow him on Twitter at @JacobBunn
