Mike Gundy apologizes to Oklahoma State fans for how team played on Saturday

South Alabama came into Stillwater and surprised Oklahoma State with a 33-7 win over the Cowboys. The Jaguars eventually left victorious in such a way that Mike Gundy went as far as to apologize to OSU’s fanbase after the loss.

Gundy opened his postgame press conference on Saturday night with that apology. He said the crowd of of nearly 54,000 inside Boone Pickens Stadium did not get the performance that the home team owed them based on how he and his staff coached and how his team played.

“First off, I’ll tell you we had a heck of a crowd out there,” Gundy said. “We came jogging out to start the game and I mean it’s a packed house.

“I feel bad for our fans for the way that we coached and played. I apologize to them. A great crowd, great atmosphere. We didn’t do a very good job of coaching and certainly didn’t do a very good job of executing.”

As Gundy examined the box score, he saw it as an all-systems failure by the ‘Pokes. He laid out all the different ways in which their offense didn’t do nearly enough while also explaining how South Alabama took advantage of their defense.

“We lost the turnover battle, we had way too many penalties. We couldn’t rush the ball. If you take away the quarterback draws, we didn’t rush the ball well enough to amount to anything,” Gundy continued. “We’ve got to do a better job of protecting the quarterbacks and giving those guys a chance to function. It looked, just from being on the sideline, like it was really difficult for them.

“And then, on the defensive side early, we gave up a few of what I call easy third down conversions on the throws where we didn’t get covered down. And we’ve got to stop the run,” Gundy added. “We came in worried too much about them throwing the ball, which is really what they had done, and they got us running the ball. We’ve got to stop the run first and then rally back and deal with the pass.”

Gundy’s first non-conference loss since 2018 and third non-conference home loss of his tenure was not a pretty one. Still, as he said to close, the only thing that Oklahoma State can do now is look at the film and learn from it ahead of the start of Big 12 play this weekend.

“We got outcoached and outexecuted. I told the team that we’ll come in tomorrow, we’ll grade it, we’ll look at it. We’ll be critical on ourselves, we’ll be critical on the players,” said Gundy. “Everybody has to own it. We’ve got to get through it.

“It’s extremely difficult when you don’t play well,” he continued. “We can’t do anything about the last one except learn from it and move forward. It’s really that simple. It seems a little simple but that’s kind of where we’re at right now.”