Cowboys Prep for Texas Bowl starts with a Road Trip
STILLWATER – Today and tomorrow are the bowl site inspection days as Oklahoma State has a team led by Director of Football Operations Mack Butler, his assistant director Rod Johnson, and head football equipment coordinator Justin Williams. The athletic department has senior associate athletic director Kevin Klintworth heading their part of the team.
They are checking with the Cowboys headquarter hotel, The Westin Galleria. They will also survey ground transportation, bowl events, and most importantly, survey the practice facility at the University of Houston and the game site NRG Stadium.
As the road team, the Cowboys will wear white jerseys and Texas A&M as the home team will wear maroon. The bowl recently started a different tradition of alternating home and away honors every three years rather than every other year. The home team also gets to practice at the Houston Texans facility at NRG Stadium.
A lot goes into the bowl planning and preparation for week long stay for an entire college football team and the traveling party.
Oklahoma State will take two equipment trucks to Houston for the Academy Sports and Outdoors Texas Bowl.
The game is on Friday, Dec. 27 with a kickoff at 5:45 p.m.
Oklahoma State will work out some after final exams and then break for a couple of days. Many of the players will drive to Houston from home, others will stick around and take the team charter flight down from Stillwater. The Dec. 27 bowl date will give the players a decent break after the game is over before they have to be back for the spring semester.
One of the cool things with the Academy Sports and Outdoors Texas Bowl is the bowl event for both teams called the Rodeo Bowl at NRG Arena. It will be on Monday, Dec. 23. Our very own network’s flagship publication, Sports Illustrated, rates it as the best bowl event for participating teams in the country.
“It really is an authentic Texas experience,” explained Houston Texans and Lone Star Sports and Entertainment President Jamey Rootes. “Now we've got two schools that kind of probably already get it, and maybe they'll be even more competitive when they get out there for the Rodeo Bowl, and they are competitive. Those guys go after it. It's typically not the starters. Everybody gets a chance to participate in something that's authentically Texan.”
Don’t expect Mike Gundy to have Chuba Hubbard or safety Kolby Harvel-Peel out there steer wrestling or riding bulls. I wouldn’t expect Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher to have quarterback Kellen Mond or defensive tackle Justin Madubuika out there herding cattle and roping steers either.
Fisher has said he needs all his defenders healthy and he expects them to be in order to have a chance to defend Hubbard, who implied last night (Twitter message thanking supporters for his Heisman run) that he is tied on for the bowl and maybe more.
“He has great balance, body control, explosive, great pad level, has the ability to make you miss and hit home runs and he can catch a football,” Fisher said of Hubbard. “He's a complete back and he blocks well, and he's done it the whole time he's been at Oklahoma State. He's going to be a tremendous challenge and they know how to you use him and utilize him and get him in space and do the right things; so it will be a huge challenge for our defense.”
As for Texas A&M, Gundy is on the road recruiting this week, but he has said he thinks the Aggies with their three losses to number one teams (Clemson, Alabama, and LSU) and the other two to Georgia and Auburn are really good. He said best 7-5 team in NCAA football history. He also said they are schematically typical of Jimbo Fisher’s teams. Oklahoma State played him in the kickoff game in Arlington to start the 2014 season.
“They are doing the same thing that Jimbo (Fisher) has always done. He's been multiple,” Gundy said. “He'll be under the center some. He'll use tight ends and fullbacks and then he'll get into the spread. This quarterback they have, I've watched him on TV some and I know he's active and I know he can run. A lot of play-action pass. They do a lot of play-action stuff. They will run some empty. His system has been the same as it's been even his years at Florida State, just an outsider looking in. I haven't watched any tape, but that's what I saw on TV.”
When Gundy and his staff get back from recruiting this week, Gundy will be in Atlanta on Thursday with Chuba Hubbard for the College Football Awards Show, he will start watching the Aggies in detail on tape. Lots of preparation for this bowl game. Oklahoma State will be looking to make it two bowl wins in a row over the SEC and former Big 12 rivals.
