Mike Gundy and the defense
By Scott Wright
It’s becoming less and less clear how Mike Gundy will manage his team in 2009.
A couple weeks ago, I asked Gundy if he thought he’d be calling plays again next year, and he said he wasn’t sure.
A few days later, offensive coordinator Gunter Brewer pulled his name out of contention for a job at Minnesota where he would have been the play-caller to stay at a place where he didn’t call plays.
And a few days after that came this quote from new defensive coodinator Bill Young when asked what he thought Gundy’s involvement with the defense would be: “He will be involved with the defense all week long. During games, he’ll be focused in on calling the offensive plays, but from Sunday until Saturday morning he’ll be involved defensively, too.”
Granted, Young clearly says Gundy will be calling plays during the game. But the rest of the quote doesn’t mesh with Gundy’s philosophy from the 2008 season.
To be a play-calling head coach, Gundy said he had to cut back his involvement in other areas, primarily the defense. He regularly pointed out that he didn’t watch the defense during games when he was sitting on a box away from the field planning the next offensive series. And he regularly told the media that he was not in tune with the defensive game plan, or the construction thereof, throughout the week or on game day.
So if Gundy is planning to be involved with the defense all week, he’ll have to be leaving offensive game planning in the hands of someone else, at least occasionally. And it doesn’t seem like a good idea for the play-caller to be stepping out of the meeting room on a regular basis. But when he said last year that he’d be calling plays, Gundy seemed very certain that he couldn’t do both: prepare the offense as the play-caller and maintain a working knowledge of the defensive plan throughout the week.
Maybe all of this is empty talk and a series of coincidences. Or maybe Gundy is reworking his staff management, and in doing so, preparing to hand off the play calling.
It’s hard to argue with OSU’s offensive success when Gundy was calling the shots. But Gundy’s amount of control, especially on game day, could have had an impact on the Cowboys’ ability to keep assistant coaches around.
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