Oklahoma State Media Day: A Comprehensive Recap

The second day of Big 12 Media Days was Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State’s time to shine. That is exactly what they did.

The theme for the day was “keep it loose and fun” and Gundy and Co. didn’t disappoint. Gundy, QB Mason Rudolph, WR James Washington, LB Chad Whitener and P Zach Sinor flew down to The Star in Frisco, TX this morning. It appears Sinor didn’t get the message about a team photo before they left.

Sinor went above and beyond to promote his Heisman campaign today. It all started with the launching of his webiste, sinor4heisman.com.

With a website like this, how can you not vote for him?

Here’s Sinor talking about his ongoing Heisman campaign.

He knows what it takes to win.

Sinor wasn’t the only one having fun in Frisco. James “Gundy” Washington was also having fun while his coach was up on the stage.

Washington also revealed that he plans to go coyote hunting with Gundy and Whitener to help protect Gundy’s prize animals.

Pistol Pete showed off his best snake-wrangling skills.

Mason Rudolph had a phenomenal interview on the Fox Sports set where he talked about Gundy calling him a heartthrob, all the weapons he has on offense, being one of the best returning players in football, why he left SEC country for the Big 12 and more.

Gundy led off his day with an interview on the Fox Sports set before taking the main stage. Suffice it to say, he had a lot of fun.

He talked about the mullet, all his antics over the past year and he had an unashamed admirer.

As far as the actual conference itself, here are the highlights.

His intro and thoughts about the upcoming season:

It's an exciting time for all of us. I was thinking flying down this morning just how we evolved at Oklahoma State and the culture that we've created with the young men and how fun it is for myself and our staff, the guys that were on the plane. They've been such great leaders for us. We've evolved into something really special at Oklahoma State.

As I look back over the year, the season, not only on the field, but our team GPA was a 2.9 this last semester. Our young people are volunteering time in the community. It's just a culture that's something that maybe I didn't even expect we could create at Oklahoma State. It's brought a lot of excitement into this season. We're thrilled to be here. We're excited about getting started in a couple of weeks.

About the Big 12 moving to a collaborative replay situation:

Well, we've been trendsetters in a lot of different ways at Oklahoma State. We went to a four-team playoff, maybe based on what happened with our team years ago. And unfortunately, we're going to maybe a different replay system based on what happened to our team a year ago. I believe in the replay. I think it's better. We want to get it right. I know it takes a little bit of time. I think any time we can go back and look and do the very best we can to make sure it's correct and fair, I think it's positive for football.

On Barry Melrose, the mullet and how much money he has raised for OSU:

I actually cut [the mullet] a couple weeks ago as I mentioned earlier. It was at ponytail potential at one time, so I either had to go with that or trim it a little. I decided to trim it. Probably let it grow. The players like to have fun. I like to have fun with them. I'm going to turn 50 here in a couple weeks, but I feel great. I'm energetic.

So I often have thought about what you just said, the time on ESPN at 10:00 with Melrose, all the different social media hits that we've had. We have a terrific social media and a media relations department at Oklahoma State, and they're on the cutting edge. They're thinking all the time. So I think that would be a good subject for marketing majors, graduate students to look into. But I'm going to say that the dollar figure is somewhere in the millions for the amount of time that we've had on the air for that.

I was very fortunate to get a new contract and should probably get an extension and a raise for that free marketing for the university.

On how good the offense is and how they plan to spread the ball:

They should be very good. We're fortunate that we have an experienced quarterback that our team trusts. They have a lot of respect for him. He's played injured throughout his career. He's unselfish. We have a group of wideouts that are certainly the best as a group that I've ever been around. They're unselfish. They understand that there's not enough footballs to go around. We're going to do the best to stay involved. Some of them are going to draw a safety over the top. Some can draw a little double coverage. We have to go with our group of guys.

We've evolved as a running team again in the last year with Justice. We need a backup there.

What you mentioned is a really good point, that how do we measure the success? We need to be effective and score points and be productive in the red zone from a touchdown standpoint and not turn the ball over. When we've had success at Oklahoma State, we've been very good in turnover margin. I think that's really important for our football team.

But I don't see any reason to hide that on offense we should be really good and our players should expect that. They've worked hard, and be demanding, and should play very well early in the season.

Finally, on the national perception of the Big 12.

I think we're all responsible for that, and I think that we're learning as a conference, as a league -- obviously, I'm in the state of Oklahoma. We have Oklahoma State, and we have Oklahoma. I think at times the fans, whether they would admit it or not, they would rather one of the rival schools lose than win when we need them to win. I'll say this, and I'll say it again. We play Oklahoma in the middle of the year. I've always said, when we play Oklahoma, I want them to be 11-0. We play them in the middle this year, so 6- 0, whatever it may be.

I think as a conference we're stronger than what the national media or our fan base might think. We play a little bit different style of football. It's an exciting game of football. And I think that we all want each other to win when we're playing nonconference games, and we'll continue to get better and better.

We're going to have terrific quarterback play. And what's interesting about our league is that, just when you think the defenses in our league won't play good in a big game, they do play good, and I think that's what makes it fun. So, yes, I think we're responsible for playing the very best we can in nonconference games to help the image of the Big 12 conference.

Here’s the full video.

Finally, let’s check in on CRFF’s bingo board, which was created by Colin Price.

We got really close, but no one felt inclined enough to ask Gundy about his pair of Heisman hopefuls, which would have given us a bingo.

So what was your favorite part of Oklahoma State’s Media Day? Does this help quell the football desire or only make it that much worse? Let us know.