This just seems right: Mike Gundy's 100th game will be Bedlam
Published: 11/22/2012 10:56 AM
Last Modified: 11/22/2012 10:56 AM
Doesn’t this seem absolutely perfect?
Mike Gundy’s 100th game as head coach at Oklahoma State University will be Bedlam.
“That’s funny it works out that way,” OSU defensive lineman Cooper Bassett said.
Gundy’s life has been Bedlam. He was a four-year starting quarterback at OSU and will participate in his 17th Bedlam game as an assistant coach or head coach. His younger brother, Cale, coaches the OU running backs and is a former Sooner quarterback.
Here’s an opinion-based list on the biggest wins of Mike Gundy’s 99-games-so-far coaching career:
1, Bedlam. OSU beat OU 44-10 last season to win a Big 12 championship and secure the Cowboys’ first trip to a BCS bowl.
2, Fiesta Bowl. OSU won an overtime thriller over Stanford and quarterback Andrew Luck (the first pick in the NFL draft) to put a cherry on top of a school-record 12-win season.
3, Big comeback. OSU rallied from a 20-3 halftime deficit against eighth-ranked Texas A&M for a 30-29 road victory last season. It set the stage for a historic season.
4, No one saw this coming. Before a 2008 trip to Missouri, OSU had been a hit-and-miss road team under Gundy. Then the Cowboys went to Columbia and muzzled a supposedly unstoppable offense, beating a third-ranked Tigers team 28-23.
5, The “other” thing that happened on Sept. 22, 2007. Gundy has won 13 games against ranked opponents. But a victory over an unranked Texas Tech in 2007 was huge for him. OSU was 1-2 and in the midst of quarterback drama after a lopsided loss at Troy. Season on the brink? The Cowboys got a 54-yard pass from Zac Robinson to Brandon Pettigrew with 1:37 remaining for a 49-45 win in a Big 12 opener. Of course, most people remember what happened -- Gundy’s infamous rant -- afterwards. OSU went 6-6 to become bowl-eligible for a second consecutive season and the Cowboys have been bowling ever since.
Gundy agrees that Bedlam 2011 was his biggest win “because that was the first time that we ever won (an outright) conference championship here. We had worked hard and talked about it and we put it up on the walls around there. Expect to win a championship. And believe. And if you don’t ever do it, then eventually the kids (dismiss it). But if you win, you can say this is what happened because of what you put into it. That’s why it was a big win.”
Gundy indicated it was among games that proved to be a perception-changer for his program. One of those games wasn’t a win. He cited a 28-24 road loss to No. 1-ranked Texas in 2008.
“People watched that on national TV and they saw that we could have won the game,” he said.
Then, recalling significant triumphs, Gundy said, “There have been a number of wins here that helped us take steps to get to a point where people respected us on an annual basis and last year’s win against Oklahoma was as big as any of them.”
Back to the original point, Kye Staley was asked if it seems perfect that Gundy’s 100th game will be another Bedlam.
“Actually it does,” the OSU fullback said. “Hopefully we can go up there and get that win for him.”
Written by
Jimmie Tramel
Sports Writer
