If ever there were a way to make your players feel like you don’t understand them or how their minds work, this was it. Mike Gundy, coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, was recently asked to account for the competitive balance that we’ve seen this season.
His answer? Cell phone games.
“”Focus and preparation is different now then it ever has been. And the players that we coach come in and they’re not like guys that we coached 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Because your generation spends all their time looking at their phone,” Gundy said at his weekly press conference.
“My generation spent all our time in the front yard playing games. And so they were more ready to go into college athletics. They understood all the dynamics of it compared to young people nowadays. They don’t spend as much time around football, they spend more time playing some game on a phone. Because of all that, and the training that takes place, there’s more parity in college football.
Gundy must have read the room after his statement, because he followed it up by saying, “I realize that sounds extreme,” but went on to reiterate his point that college athletes are less prepared than they once were because of cell phone use. He claims to have asked several coaches in different sports about this very topic and to have received corroboration on his theory.
To be fair though, they were likely trying to get off the phone as quickly as they could and would have agreed to just about anything.
Related: Mike Gundy does not anticipate the Big 12 will expand due to global warming.
— Travis Haney (@travhaney) October 17, 2016
A silly answer when you give it even a modicum of thought. It’s backwards logic to think the game is more competitive because the players are less prepared. It’s a collective lull around sports. Damn cell phones.
Coach Gundy, sometimes it’s alright to say “I dunno”.
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Photo Credit: Oklahoma State Twitter
