Injuries to key players and disciplinary issues have left the 16th-ranked Cowboys (2-1) depleted and taken some of the steam out of preseason talk of a Big 12 championship and first-ever BCS bowl appearance.
On the way into his weekly news conference Monday, Gundy spotted a roll of Rolaids and tucked it away.
“I just walked by and saw this laying on the desk out here, and nobody claimed it so I took it and kept it in my pocket to make my stomach feel a lot better,” Gundy said, holding up the roll. “It has been a difficult start for us. But that’s the way it is. What are you going to do about it?”
It’d make Gundy feel better if he had three injured starters — tailback Kendall Hunter, receiver Dez Bryant and cornerback Perrish Cox — healthy again, but he’s not sure if that’ll happen by the time Grambling State (2-1) of the Football Championship Subdivision visits on Saturday.
Gundy said Hunter is no longer wearing the protective boot he was given to help his sprained right ankle heal, and Bryant and Cox are both “day to day” after getting hurt in Saturday’s 41-24 win against Rice.
And those three stars are only a few of the Cowboys who have been out.
Defensive end Jermiah Price, strong safety Markelle Martin and linebacker Orie Lemon have all missed games with injuries. Safeties Victor Johnson and Johnny Thomas were suspended for breaking team rules, and starting tight end Jamal Mosley left the team amid a police investigation that hasn’t yielded any charges.
“Guys get hurt in football,” Gundy said. “We had some discipline measures that needed to take place, and we’re always going to do that here. Unfortunately, at times, young men fall by the wayside. ...
“We’re not always perfect. Neither are the players. It’s just kind of the philosophy that we’ve kept up, and it’s worked for us up to this point.”
Without Hunter and Bryant, Oklahoma State at times hasn’t been able to reproduce its usual high-scoring ways. The Cowboys are putting up 33.3 points and 364 yards per game, significantly off from the 40.8 points and 488 yards they averaged last season.
And the scoring mark has been boosted by special teams touchdowns in each of OSU’s three games.
“We’re just making minor mistakes and everyone can tell because we’re not putting up 50 points,” said Keith Toston, who started in place of Hunter against Rice. “The mistakes that we’re making, we didn’t make those when we were scoring 40 and 50 points per game.”
Offensive coordinator Gunter Brewer suggested that the problems start up front, where Oklahoma State lost both starting guards in the offseason plus first-round draft pick Brandon Pettigrew at tight end.
“That’s like a team of Clydesdales. Those guys have all got to be together, pulling the right direction at the same time,” Brewer said. “As many things as defenses are doing with stunts and blitzes and all the things that are crazy up front now, it does take a while to develop that continuity and game shape, not just practice.”
Brewer said the problems have been exacerbated because teams have been focusing on taking away the Cowboys’ option-based perimeter game and forcing them to run inside — where the guards are still trying to fit in. OSU is averaging 4 yards per rush after getting 6.7 yards per carry through its first three games last season.
“They like to be able to hang their hat on the run. They take a lot of pride in that,” Gundy said. “People don’t talk about linemen a lot. People talk about quarterbacks. They talk about safeties. But linemen, it’s just as important from an experience standpoint.”
Even with all that’s gone wrong, Gundy said he didn’t plan to hold any of his starters out against Grambling State if they’re healthy enough to play. The Cowboys are off next week before opening Big 12 play at Texas A&M on Oct. 10.
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