Cale Gundy, radio host and former Oklahoma QB, tells McElroy & Cubelic what he's learned from the SEC & Big 12 this offseason
14:21 Share

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply.

LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Passion, drive, and patience. The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance.

Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more. Whether you're into speed, power, or style, eBay Motors has you covered. With over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die, you'll always find exactly what you're looking for. And with eBay Guaranteed Fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back. Because with eBay Motors...

You're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to make your car the MVP and bring home huge wins. Keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. See ebaymotors.com. This Jocks 94.5 podcast is brought to you by Millennium Satellite and Video. Log on to msbnow.com. TV excellence everywhere. That's Millennium.

McElroy and Kubelik in the morning starts now. All right, welcome back in. McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. Big Ten media days continuing today. Talking about a couple of teams that will be in attendance today. Lincoln Riley just on SportsCenter answering what's the biggest adjustment his team has to make heading into the Big Ten this year. Continuing practice when guys are banged up. Wow.

That's just, I'm throwing that out there. I'm throwing it out there as my suggestion, but Hey, it's his team. He can run however he wants guys banged up. I would suggest you keep practicing, but that's just me. That's just my, that's just my thoughts. That sends the right message to just keep working. I would say just cause a couple of guys on offense, um, being dinged up, you don't just cancel practice for a few weeks, but Hey, what do I know? I don't,

I don't know. That to me seems like a strange concept. Maybe Cale Gundy, he's been in coaching for a while or wasn't coaching for a while. He might have an answer for that. On our sister station there in Oklahoma City, joining us now on the Buyer's Right Hotline. Coach, when you look at all this realignment and you think about teams like Texas, Oklahoma coming to the SEC, a little bit more of a grind physically. You think about USC, UCLA, Oregon heading to the Big Ten, a little bit more of a grind physically. Will it be that different physically?

through, I guess, late October, most of November for these teams, in your opinion?

Yeah, I think so. First of all, you know, my man Lincoln, which I'm close with, obviously Coach shared OU with him and we remain good friends, but they better get used to some cold weather and they better get used to some travel, some miles and getting home late at night when you're traveling from the East Coast all the way back to the West Coast or vice versa, you know. So, but it's exciting times. It's great for college football and excited to see the future moving forward.

What do you make of that transition? I mean, you were obviously a person that spent a ton of time in the Big 12, but you've played Big Ten teams. You know what that league's all about. You've seen SC up close and personal. How challenging of a transition is that for a team like SC that's high-flying and wants to pour it on from a point standpoint to a league that kind of wants to grind you out at the line of scrimmage?

Well, it's going to be a big transition, obviously. I mean, you know, if you look at USC and what they've been doing the last few years here, they've been struggling tremendously defensively. I mean, everybody knows that. You're about to go into a new conference where they're going to, you know, a lot of them like to put two tight ends and just grind you to death and just pound you and wear you out. But on the flip side of that,

the Big Ten Conference has to be prepared. The one thing Lincoln Riley can do is he can score. He has great quarterbacks. He's got great skill players. He's extremely creative. The most creative offense of mine I've ever been around when it comes to plays usually has about, you know, give or take about six new offensive plays every game that he goes into. And typically four to five out of those six are always successful. So,

It's a learning curve. They're going to have to adapt. There's no doubt about it. It'll be challenging. It's just a little bit kind of the same here from OU moving, going down to the SEC. Being down at the media days last week in Dallas with you guys,

You know, when we talked to SEC coaches or SEC players and we said, OK, you've got an opportunity to go to the team room of OU or Texas and stand in front of the team and tell them what's the biggest thing, the most important thing you're going to have to adapt to. And everybody says the princess. I mean, that comes from the coaches and the players. You guys know that because both of y'all played there in a conference.

Kale Gundy, former Oklahoma player coach, joining us on the Buyers Right Hotline, now Dust Radio in Oklahoma City, talking transition into some of these Power Five conferences, specifically for Oklahoma this year. We've talked about it on our show. Bill Biedenboe is one of the best, but you've got to replace everybody. Even if you're bringing in transfers, it's going to be a massive concern. What's the ceiling, I guess, for Oklahoma up front on offense this year, just based on what you've seen and what you know? No.

Well, you brought up Coach Beaton Bowes, a great friend of mine, one of my best friends. I coached with him for a long time, spent a lot of time with him. We have lake houses at the same place. I believe he is one of the best offensive line coaches in the country. So his players are going to know what to do. His players are going to be in the right positions. The question is, do they have the right bodies to do what they need to do? And that's my question, Mark. When I went and saw them in the spring season,

I had a chance to go down and watch them in individual and some one-on-ones and some inside drill. And my biggest concern is just the body types itself. Obviously, need to have those offensive linemen that are 330s and 340s and 350s on a consistent basis that can move people down in the trenches. So I just – that's the one question.

I still have is do they have those type of bodies? I didn't really see much of them out there. I've heard here recently these guys have been putting on 6 pounds, 10 pounds, 12 pounds. I just didn't see the type of lower part of the bodies, the legs, the hips that you need in the SEC in the trenches. When you look at some of the other bodies like you referenced, I am curious kind of getting it back to a Big 12 perspective just for a moment.

How do you think, like I grew up in that league. That was a league I followed growing up as Dallas kid. OU Texas was the backbone of my, of my college fandom for sure for a very long time. And I'm kind of amazed at the transition the league has made, has made in recent years. I mean, it was high flying race to 50 and now I feel like it's really a ground and pound league where you have a lot of ball control teams and

It's kind of uncomfortable to see it being played the way it's being played right now. So when you look at what you think will win in the Big 12 this year moving forward, what do you think it will be? Well, you know, when you talk about those type of offenses, when you practice like that offensively, it's hard to have a defense on the flip side that is a physical defense because, you know, you're spending time going against the offense.

offense all spring long, and you're dropping eight guys in coverage, and you're trying to cover guys from sideline to sideline, a lot of skilled guys in space. And then when you have to face those teams that like to run the ball, sometimes that hurts the defense. So here in the Big 12, you've got to look at teams. Obviously, the new teams that have came in,

especially Utah. Number one, I mean, they're going to be a top two or three team. You know what Kyle Whittingham wants to do. You know what Utah football wants to be. They want to be physical. They want to be tough. They want to hit you in the mouth on both sides of the ball. I mean, they have no problem telling everybody that.

and giving them their blueprint or maybe their game script before the game and saying, here is what we are going to do. And you're not going to be able to stop us. So that's going to be a challenge a little bit for this conference. Obviously, K-State's always been a great offensive football team that finds ways to outnumber you

you know, sometimes gets the numbers on the perimeter and now having a quarterback like an Avery Johnson who is a young man who's extremely fast,

they're going to probably create some run schemes for him to get numbers against the defense, which is going to be tough to stop. So, you know, you look at in the Big 12, you look at Utah, you look at Kansas State, and you look at my brother's team, Oklahoma State, which, you know, returns 21 starters per

one of the most schools in the country that returns the most starters. So it should be a great year this year in the Big 12 Conference. Cale Gundy, you can hear him on our sister station in Oklahoma City, the Sports Animal 98.1 WWLS from 11 to 2 weekdays. I wanted to ask you about Oklahoma State. We had a few conversations about them last week.

we think that they should be head of the class in the Big 12. What could potentially hold them back? And maybe what are some areas of strength that not enough people are talking about with the Oklahoma State football team this upcoming season?

Well, they've got a quarterback in Alan Bowman who's going to be in his seventh season, guys. Can you just imagine being in college for seven years? So he's going into his seventh season. He's been around a lot. He's a perfect quarterback in that system. Will he spend a lot of days playing in the NFL? Probably not. But is he the type of quarterback on your college football team you would love to have?

because of his leadership skills and his experience 100%. So obviously, Ollie Gordon, one of the great running backs in all of college football. They have tremendous wide receivers in Rashad Owens and Brennan Presley, and then they return all five starters in the offensive line. So they've got a lot of depth and going to be loaded on that side. To me, the question is the defensive side.

Now, they returned 10 defensive starters, but this return from a defense last year that was 122nd in total defense, was 86th in scoring, was 96th in rushing, and 123rd in passing. So returning 10 guys, is that what you want to hear? I don't know. Hopefully the defensive coordinator, second-year guy Brian Nardo, is going to get these guys in a better position. And if they can increase –

if they can increase defensively, you know, 30 spots or so in these categories, it's going to help them tremendously. Hey, they finished 10-4 last year. But if they can continue to do that and do the things offensively with the talent they got, they got a chance to be pretty good.

I wanted to ask you one more question, Coach, before we let you run, and that is you spent some time here at UAB as an assistant coach. Actually recruited me a little bit in high school with Pat Donahoe and Coach Brown. When you see kind of where it's gone, and I know you're now a little bit removed, but you and I talked about Protective Stadium and kind of the new facility and whatnot. How do you view UAB with what they've added and kind of where it's going from a little bit of a distance compared to what you knew one day way back when?

Well, you know, we were in the beginning stages. That was a young program down there when I was there from 95 through 98. Watson Brown was the head coach. We had some very good assistant coaches on the staff, guys that worked with him at Mississippi State and some other guys, Larry Vanderhane, offensive line, Pat Donahoe, Rick Christophel, John Neal, who was at Oregon, George Pugh, a lot of really good coaches.

We kind of started that program and started building that program. You know, I can remember the first or second year, we kind of, especially the first year, we took some licks, but we turned that thing around really, really quick and had some success and went and played some teams very, very tough down there. Alabama and that part of the country, there's so many good football players down there, and I just believe there's enough players to go around. And UAB's done a tremendous job. They built a great stadium there that fits them perfect. And you're just, you know, you're in the hotbed of college football.

in my opinion. Like I told you, between that and NASCAR, I mean, it doesn't get any better. Coach, we appreciate you taking some time to join us. Always good catching up. You bring a lot of insight in a lot of different ways. We'll have to do it again soon.

All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you. There we go. Cale Gundy, former Oklahoma quarterback, brother, obviously head coach at Oklahoma State. They're now on the sports animal in Oklahoma City, 11 to 2 weekdays in Oklahoma City. Was an assistant coach here at UAB for a while. So he's been around college football. He knows it. And he doesn't feel like that transition physically for these teams coming into the Big Ten or the SEC, Greg, should be understated.

I think it's going to be really interesting. And I think it's going to be tough to kind of assess what is progress. What is a quality year? Because the transition is so significant. I think it's going to be fun to watch. I think it's going to be hard about it, but I also think that they can be real dangerous.

And they'll be ready to roll. It's going to be dangerous. It's just... I feel like people are on one side or the other with this. They either think, hey, it's not going to be an issue. It's Texas or it's Oklahoma or, oh, it's Oregon. They've been used to that. Or they think...

It's something that's definitely going to get in the way and definitely going to slow them down. So we'll see exactly how it plays out. You know how things play out at your CBD store. I've told you before, if you need better night's sleep, if you suffer from arthritis or anxiety, actually you or your pets, your CBD store has helped multiple pets in my home with arthritis and issues that they've had gotten them back to being able to get up and down the stairs on their own. They can

We'll be right back.

First company to have those. Check out one of the four locations. Highway 280 by Bailey Brothers, 150 by the Cajun Cleaver, Trustful Just Off 459, and now downtown in Five Points. Your CBD store where good health hits home. All right, we'll continue. There is a number, by the way, speaking of the Big Ten, that is astonishing that I'm going to bring up next time.

It is a lengthy streak that I'm going to ask Greg and John, do they think it ends this year? Right after this on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kubelik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a

A player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Cup or wherever you get your podcasts.

Search for The Rich Eisen Show on YouTube or wherever you listen.