Skip to main content

Cowboy Football Notebook: Gundy Wraps Kansas, Looks Ahead to West Virginia

Mike Gundy hit on the win over Kansas one last time before moving on to looking ahead to West Virginia

STILLWATER -- It was a solid weekend for Oklahoma State. Cowboy football continued its winning streak as it beat Kansas 31-13, they hosted an official visitor out of Utah, and Cowboy basketball secured a hard-fought win over a tough Yale team.

As he does every Monday of game week, Mike Gundy met with the media to put a bow on the previous game, address any issues that might still remain and start to look ahead at the upcoming match up.

The match up this week, week 11 of the Pokes' season, is West Virginia on the road in Morgantown.

The Mountaineers are fresh off a 24-20 upset of No. 24 Kansas State in Manhattan, KS.

"We are onto another week,” said head coach Mike Gundy. “Last week was a good win for us. We obviously had a great day for the military, which was awesome. I made it real clear to the team [why we wore the uniforms to honor the military] and they all understood. I thought it was a good learning opportunity for all of us and for the young people on our team. It was a great day for everybody. It has been overwhelming."

Coach Gundy continued with, "Moving forward to West Virginia, we got an early kickoff. Obviously, they played really well last week; went in and won in Manhattan, where we all know it’s a difficult place to play. Their defense has been good all year. They’ve had a game or two where maybe they felt like they didn’t play as well as they wanted to. They’ve been very consistent. They get pressure with their down guys. They tackle really well. One thing I noticed right away is that they don’t miss a lot of tackles. They are aggressive and they are playing well on defense. Offensively, they’ve found a quarterback who they are comfortable with. He is effective with the football and he takes care of the football. It’s a good win for them and we are looking forward to the preparations this week and the early morning kickoff out there in Morgantown.”

Something that Oklahoma State has struggled with as an offense this season has been turnovers. This past week against Kansas? Zero offensive turnovers. And even though he threw one against TCU and one against Iowa State, the Cowboy defense was there to bail him out.

"He's done well,” said coach Gundy about Spencer Sanders. “We implemented some ways to try to correct the issue. In most cases, those things don't happen overnight. He's been successful in what has hurt him and our team in the middle part of the year, which was putting the ball on the ground. We worked hard on it from a drill standpoint and he's gotten better. He's starting to settle in at his position and has a better feel. His ability to make decisions and make adjustments on the sideline is getting better each week."

Another highlight from this past weekend was the performance by backup quarterback Dru Brown. Brown transferred in prior to the start of last season, and served as the backup to Taylor Cornelius.

After a lengthy spring, summer and fall camp quarterback battle, Spencer Sanders was tabbed the starter and Brown has seen extremely limited action due to the success of Sanders.

Well, Sanders was pulled in the third quarter of the Kansas game with a sore thumb. The Pokes were up big, so there was no need to risk further injury. Brown was put into action and he went 3-of-5 passing with 70 yards and touchdown to Dillon Stoner.

"We were pleased with Dru," said coach Gundy. "He has been a great illustration of the culture at Oklahoma State. I mentioned it after the game, he was a captain in that game because of all of the hard work and effort he has put in, and the commitment he has had to our program. We enjoy seeing him have success, and he came out and played well."

For those of you concerned about Sanders' injury, there's no need to worry.

“He was out there with us last night," said Gundy. "He’s got a little brace on, so he was out there with us last night."