A day after his team's botched loss to Central Michigan, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy has issued the following statement:
“I’m disappointed in myself that I called a play that could have been interpreted as intentional grounding. That play has been in our playbook for 12 years now and intentional grounding and an untimed down after the last play of the game never even crossed my mind. Of course in hindsight, I wish I would have done it differently, but in the big picture, the game should have been over. While I’m disappointed in myself, I am also disappointed that we had 10 rules officials who didn’t properly apply the rule. I give credit to Central Michigan for coming up with a great play and executing it as well as they did.
My reason for reaching out to you with this statement is this – we have another game on Saturday and letting the end of the Central Michigan game linger into this week would not help our team in any way. I want this to be our final official comment on the end of the Central Michigan game, so we can close the book on it and move forward to Pittsburgh. In our program, we talk all the time about controlling the things we can control and not getting caught up in the things we can’t control. We can control how we focus on and prepare for Pittsburgh. We can’t control the decisions that were made Saturday, so I do not believe it benefits our coaches or players to dwell on them and re-hash them beyond what we already did during post-game interviews, the comments that our athletic director made yesterday and now with this statement from me today.”
A few questions:
Hindsight is always 20/20 but, when looking into the program's own past, it's a wonder why the Cowboys didn't take a safety as they had five years ago.
Gundy, understandably, wants to put Saturday's loss behind him. But I'm not sure anyone else is.