Man … I thought there was one of those two-ton elephant things going on in the room when the press conference started  for the first Heart of Dallas Bowl, featuring Oklahoma State and Purdue.  Did I miss something?

Did Dallas show everyone too good of a time?  I don’t know what the deal was … but the press conference was really subdude and at times I would say the two coaches seemed almost irritable.

Ha! Almost right off the bat, someone asked OSU’s Coach Mike Gundy if his team felt slighted by the Big 12 when the Cowboys weren’t invited to a more prestigious bowl.  Dang! Take that, gracious hosts.  But Gundy was at least diplomatic and shrugged it off in so many words.

“I feel like our players, we are excited to be around each other for another month and playing a game,” Gundy said. “I coached 11 years and never had an opportunity to play in a bowl game, and so I tried to stress the feelings and the opportunity for our players, and certainly our coaches.”

Of course both Gundy and Purdue’s Coach Patrick Higgins were complimentary of their opponents and the opposing conferences, Big 12 and Big 10 respectively.

For tomorrow’s 11 a.m. kickoff, CST on ESPNU, it is safe to say, many think Purdue (6-6) may have their hands full with The Cowboys.  The Boilermakers have only one winning season in the last five. On the other side of the ball, OSU (7-5) was at one time, early on, in the hunt for a national championships and leads the country in yards per play, an average of seven per snap.  But keep in mind, OSU just lost its stellar offensive coordinator — Todd Monken — to the head coaching position at Southern Miss earlier this month.

Higgins said, “They (OSU) are so hard to prepare for, because they run the ball so well and they pass the ball so well, and they are very efficient in what they do and that’s the thing that jumps off the film at you is you try to take one thing away; that they are so efficient at the other aspect of the game; that they hurt you with that.”

Gundy summed up the changes in his camp … and maybe this was why  he seemed on edge … “I’ve had to go back to work, that’s for sure, I guess what has it been, the last 15 days …  But I’ve enjoyed being back in the meeting room with the quarterbacks and working with the offense.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both schools have won their last two bowl games and both coaches feel their squads are better than their records indicate.  Should be an interesting matchup.

And so it went.  For more information on the game:

Heart of Texas Bowl

 

“So coaches … a word?”

Naturally, we at PingWi-Fi were a little unsatisfied, and toward the end of the questions strayed from X and O questions and opened the Internet can of worms.  I mean, we love football but The Web is what we do.  (It was no accident, by the way, that PingWi-Fi was the very first to tweet an entire bowl game from the pressbox … and that everyone else followed.)

Social media is now part of all industries and, I won’t lie, the topic seemed to breathe life or at least some levity in a somewhat stagnant room.

 

 

 

 

PingWi-Fi: A few years ago, people would scoff about social media; now, you watch the NFL games and you’ve got a Twitterer up there in the press box. I’m curious about what you tell your teams — to both coaches — about bulletin board material and what they put up there on the Internet.

Coach Higgins: Me first this time. Social media is a unique concept and it can be used ‑‑ as we know, it can be used for good and it can be used for evil, okay.

Coach Gundy: Let me check my messages.

Coach Higgins: That’s right (laughter).

Coach Gundy:: I know Robert is checking his. (laughter).

Coach Higgins: So we always try to educate the young men that what you say can come back. I’m going to tell you a quick story.

We had Irving Fryar from the NFL come in and talk to our young men during preseason camp, and he pulled up some of the things that our men had on Facebook and on Twitter and made them stand up and read it. And some of it wasn’t very flattering. And that was a real life lesson right there for them that says, whatever you put down, whatever you Tweet, whatever you put on Facebook, it’s there, for everybody to see.

So automatically, that becomes an image of who you are, what type of person you are. You have to be very careful. It can be a great tool to promote your team, your university, your conference and yourself as an individual, but it can also do a lot of harm if not used properly.

So that’s the education we try to teach these young men.

Coach Gundy: Well, as Coach said, we say the same thing. We have discussions with our players and try to do the best we can to educate them, because it’s here forever.

I have three sons at the house, one is 16, one is 11 and one is eight and I tried to keep it way from them as long as they could. And now the eight year old is wanting to do it.

So we think education is the way to handle it. Our players are allowed to be on Facebook and Twitter and whatever source of interaction that they feel like that they need to survive in the real world, and we try to educate them and handle it the right way and make the best of it. And over the last year, two years I guess for that matter, they have really improved in how they have handled themselves on Facebook and Twitter.

Well said gentleman … I’d follow and/or retweet either one of you … and of course Coach Gundy has seen the power of the Internet firsthand, when he went viral several seasons back … up around 3 million views now.

Know what I sayin?