After a historic year defensively for Oklahoma State under Jim Knowles, Mike Gundy wanted to see some serious action from his administration to keep Knowles calling the shots on defense in Stillwater.
While the Cowboys administration was willing to step up a bit, it didn't compare to what Ohio State was willing to do to land Knowles, so Gundy lost his defensive coordinator to Ryan Day and the Buckeyes.
During his signing day press conference yesterday, Gundy hit on the departure of Knowles when asked about the job the defensive staff did to keep things together with Knowles' departure. He also touched on what his process is going to look like in finding a new defensive play caller, and what he values.
"Listen. Here's the deal. There is continuity and structure over here, because I've been here 18 years. When you do that, you've got continuity and you've got structure and you've got consistency. Parents understand that and the recruits understand that."
"Coach Knowles was a fabulous coach, and we'd have liked to have kept him here 100 years, but he's not going to be here anymore. Nothing is going to change. We're not going to miss a beat. We'll hire another coordinator...I've done this for years and years and years and its my job to find a smart, loyal, har-working person who is going to come in here and work with them - whether I hire from inside or outside - that's not going to be a problem because they'll come into this culture."
"If they don't want to come into this culture it doesn't make a difference to me who it is, or how good he is, they're not coming. We're not changing what we do."
Then Gundy takes a page out of Harbaugh's book next...
"Consistency is the most important thing in building a big-time college football program, in my opinion.
"Now, I’ve never been at some of these schools where, as people say, you wake up on third base and you think you hit a triple. I’ve never been there, so I don’t know what it’s like to coach at a school like that. Coach Knowles will know.”
Harbaugh used that same popular baseball analogy earlier this year to address some of the overconfident chatter coming out of Columbus leading up to their rivalry game with Ohio State.
Gundy then creatively flipped it to fit the message he was trying to send yesterday.
There is so much to love about college football...
Hear Gundy's full answer in the clip.