Robert Allen, from The Pokes Report, tells McElroy & Cubelic everything that went down during Big 12 Media Days and why OK State shouldn't be the automatic favorite in the league
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That's behamrealtyco.com and give them a call at 205-568-2705. All right, Robert Allen covers the Oklahoma State Cowboys. He joins us now on the Buyer's Right Hotline at our Allen Go Pokes on Twitter, pokesreport.com. Sideline for Oklahoma State football as well. Robert, we've had, I don't know, 48, 72 hours now sort of decompressed from Coach Gundy and the comments that had a lot of people on fire after he was there at Big 12 Media Days Wednesdays.

How are people sort of viewing it now that we've had a little bit of time to calm down? You know, I think Mike Dendy is viewed different locally here than he was at the Big 12 media days with a lot of the national. In fact, one of the things I noticed when we were there,

Did radio. We had Mike was, you know, at these media days, those of us that are in the business realize these coaches come in. The first place they go is to their local guy, their guy. And so Mike sat down with us. And, you know, he actually said he didn't use the 50 carries punishment line with us, but he did use the, you know,

I don't know if it was thousands, hundreds, whatever, have made bad decisions. And I even told my audience, and I've known Mike since he was in high school. I was at the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City and covered Mike when he was a quarterback at West City High School. Know his family. And the thing is, Mike, when he does do media, he doesn't do media as much as some coaches.

He kind of stays back. But when he does, he doesn't do coach speak. He just tells it the way he thinks it is. And I think in the media they're a little out of practice. What he said, and I said it on my station, I'm not proud of it, but I remember I was a walk-on at Oklahoma State. I remember waking up one morning on a Sunday and looking out the window of the dorm and

saying, is that my car? How'd it get there? And that's a terrible, and that was actually an eye-opening experience for me. I realized you can't do that. You can't do that. But what I think Mike Gundy was saying, and I really don't want to speak for him, but in this case I'll just throw it out, I think he was saying that happens a lot. College kids, kids growing up,

It's not right. We probably should do a better job of trying to nip it in the bud to stop it before it happens. But youthful indiscretion is plentiful.

And I think that's what he was trying to say. He didn't say it well. And he came back on social media, on his Twitter account, and tried to explain what he was saying. I don't think Mike Gundy has gotten behind the wheel of a car a thousand times and been legally intoxicated. Do I think he did it before? No.

Maybe on a couple of occasions. Yeah, I think he probably did. I know he doesn't do it anymore because he, you know, I don't think I've seen him pick up an alcoholic beverage in maybe 20 years now. So, yeah, sometimes when you're a coach and you throw those things out. Mike also likes to be glib at times. That's just his style. And you get punished for that, too.

The glib comment was probably the more, well, if we're going to punish him, we'll give it to him 50 times on August 31st when it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we kick off. You know, you...

The people here locally know him a little bit better. I talked to Scott Wright at the Oklahoman afterwards. I talked to several other reporters. I said, what did you think? They said, well, it was Mike being Mike. But Mike being Mike on a national stage or, in this case, probably a more – well, it was national and super regional at the conference media days –

That's not going to play as well these days. When he does that in front of his local media group, they're probably not going to bat an eye. And they didn't. It wasn't, you know, the stories around here were more the reaction nationally to what Mike said than it was just to what Mike said.

Robert Allen joining us on the Bars Right Hotline covers Oklahoma State football, pokesreport.com. All right, so let's go to this team. And we know what Ollie Gordon is, know what he's capable of, arguably best running back returning in college football, definitely one of the most productive. And you got a quarterback, Alan Bowman, with a lot of experience in offensive line that essentially brings everybody back and then some. Do you believe Oklahoma State should be the clear favorite to win the Big 12 this year?

No, because I'll tell you guys, an exercise I do every summer, usually in June when it's time to fill out those polls that Big 12 sends out, I go through every team and I pick every game.

Just go through it. I've done this for a lot of years. It's kind of a Phil Steele kind of type exercise. And I had a four-way tie at the top. I had Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and I had two teams. I think people are seriously overlooking West Virginia and UCF, all with seven and two records. I think this league is going to be a battle royale. I don't think there is a clear favorite.

And people say, well, how could you not have Utah? Well, I had Utah going 6-3, and their last game is at UCF on Black Friday. Well, that's a tough place to play. I mean, Utah and Colorado and Arizona and Arizona State, they're going to get some lessons in tough places to play. I want to ask you guys, do you guys think USC, playing in the Coliseum against USC is a tough place to play?

I think it can be. I think it depends on what that team is when you get them. It is on that team, but as far as an atmosphere, it's a big old stadium. It's usually not full. Now, I think Oregon is a terribly tough place to play. I know Washington is a tough place to play and Washington State. But let me tell you something. It's going to be a little different for these guys going to Manhattan, Kansas. That's a tough place to play.

K-State, they fill it up. They're rabid. You go to West Virginia. West Virginia is a tough place to play. Stillwater is a tough place to play. Lubbock can be a pretty challenging place to go play. And Iowa State, it's always full. And those people hit you in the mouth.

And I found out last year, UCF, the bounce house, I think they call it, or the bounce house is Wisconsin. But, um,

No, down there in Orlando. Oklahoma State was their space game, which is kind of like homecoming for a lot of people. They've never lost one of those. In like seven or eight years they've been doing it, they've never lost a space game. Well, they still haven't. They kicked Oklahoma State's butt. So, yeah, I went through the schedule, looked at all these things, where the buys were, who did they play the week before, who did they play the week after, etc.

and went through the whole thing, and I had four teams tied at first. I had five teams tied at, like, seventh, and I think I had two teams tied for second to last. I just think this league is going to be incredibly difficult to navigate, and I think you're going to have a lot of logjams all over the standings.

We would agree. Greg and I, he's out today, but we have talked about sort of the depth of this league and how many teams seem to be very close to one another. But I think there's some aspects of this Oklahoma State team that looks like they could potentially separate from a few of those. That being said, and what made me think about it is some of the differences that you discussed. Robert Allen's with us in the Bars Right Hotline. You can find his work at pokesreport.com.

at our Alan Gopokes on Twitter, coming into a new league. And I was actually surprised. Central Florida was one of the teams. BYU was another team last year that I just thought would have more success.

That being said, because the venues that are going to ramp up from the Pac-12 maybe to the Big 12, it's going to be the same thing from Oklahoma State and Texas going from the Big 12 to the SEC. What do you anticipate? Do you have a different view of Oklahoma especially and of Texas leading the Big 12 to come to the SEC? What are your real expectations for those two teams year one in the Southeastern Conference?

Well, I think Steve Sarkisian's got Texas in a really good position. I know that, you know, Oklahoma State played them in the conference championship game, and I know later on Coach Gundy ran into Sark, and Sark said, what did you think of the team, of my team? And Coach Gundy said, really good. I mean, you guys spanked our butts down there in Arlington. And he said, Mike, that's two years of really unlimited NIL.

So Texas ramped up at exactly the right time. I remember when their second-team defensive line came in in the second half, and I'm looking out there, and I'm going, wow, that's the second-team group up front on defense. Damn.

They're a real deal. That's a real deal defensive line. And with the guys that came out last year from Texas, those guys are going to be the starters in this first SEC season. So I see Texas going in there, and I think they're going to challenge. I know how good Georgia is. I know Alabama's great, and I get that. I think Texas is going to be very comfortable. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, they get Georgia and Austin.

They do. Which will be a heck of a game. Oklahoma, on the other hand, they're on the wrong end of the cycle going into the SEC. You know, I've seen Oklahoma for years, obviously, and this is not the best version of Oklahoma. I mean, I think Arnold will be a really good quarterback, but you're asking him to go in there and really start his first season in the SEC? Yeah.

That's going to be difficult. And I'll tell you whether the OU team right now is different from the ones that I had. They're not as good up front. They're not as good up front offensively. They're not as good up front defensively. And in that league, that is a huge difference maker. So I don't know. I haven't looked at their schedule. I don't cover Oklahoma. But just on the eye test,

I would say they're going to have a lot of difficulty where I think Texas is going to be – I think they'll be really good. I think they'll be challenging for the top.

I want to go back to Oklahoma State one more time before we let you run. Yeah, because I didn't talk much about Oklahoma State. I talked more about the league. That's fine. It's an interesting conversation, and it's a topic that we've actually kicked around a lot. What needs to sort of fall into place? What needs to happen as far as question marks for Coach Gundy's team to maybe make a playoff run this year?

I'm going to give you some very recent happenings that I think are going to give this team a chance to do really well. One is Ollie Gordon's arrest.

Ollie is a good kid. I have no doubt that he is remorseful over this. He's a kid that goes to women's tennis matches, to soccer matches, to men's and women's basketball. He goes and supports all the other athletes. He goes to elementary schools when he's not asked to go. I mean, he enjoys being Ollie.

And he knows what he knows. Ali just got knocked down, just got ripped. And he's back to ground zero. So I think he's going to be he'll come out a hungrier football player, unfortunately, because, I mean, this is a you know, you don't want to see anybody go through this. You don't want to see anybody make that kind of mistake. But Ali's going to come back a better version.

because he's that kind of kid. Alan Bowman, who you guys mentioned, seventh-year quarterback. But Alan Bowman, while he had success last year, he knows he at times was not a reason this team won. They had to overcome his efforts at times because he had a lot of rust. Hadn't played in two years sitting up on the bench in Michigan. He, this offseason, got in better shape.

Lost about 5 to 10 pounds, a little bit quicker. Now instead of throwing it up in the bleachers when he doesn't see anything, he wants to tuck it and try and keep the offense ahead of the chains. He also spent a lot of time in the film room going over all of his mistakes to kind of make himself a better quarterback for this year. And I think in spring it showed up. Then on defense, what they did was they've got some guys you haven't heard of yet. Jaleel Johnson.

is a guy to pay attention to. He's a defensive end. It's his time. It's like his third year in the program. He's bigger, faster, stronger. There's a transfer back there in the secondary at safety, Kobe Hilton.

He was at UTEP. He was a really good player at UTEP. In fact, had a heck of a game last year against Oklahoma and Norman, but nobody at UTEP gets a lot of credit. So there's a guy that's kind of surfaced here. So basically they found a few new things to add to the Nick Martins, the Colin Olivers.

on offense, the Gordons. De'Jon Stribling is another name to look for because you've got Presley and Owens at receiver. Stribling was the leading receiver after four games last year, which were not very good. They were 2-2 at that point. He got hurt and was out for the season. So you get him back. And I think physically he's probably the most gifted kid in the receiver corps.

So they've got some things that people don't know about that I think are going to take them up a notch, along with all the guys they do know about that are returning that look pretty good. So, yeah, I came out of the spring thinking –

This is the best Oklahoma State team I've seen since 2011, and that was the Whedon Blackman crew that got so close to playing for a national championship and lost to Iowa State in the second-to-last regular season game, and that kicked all their dreams to the curb. So, yeah, I think this team's got a great chance. The unfortunate thing is,

I think Utah's really good. I think Kansas State's really good. I think West Virginia, UCF, Kansas, Arizona. I just think there's a lot of good teams in this league that you've got to be ready to play virtually every week now in the Big 12, which you haven't had to over the years, guys. Now it's getting closer to where you've got to be ready to play almost every week.

Absolutely. Robert, great stuff. Appreciate you taking some time. Talk some Big 12. Talk some Oklahoma State, even some Oklahoma and Texas. Enjoy the visit. Let's do it again soon. All right. Thanks, guys. There you go. Robert Allen, pokesreport.com, at our Allen Go Pokes on Twitter. Not near as confident on Oklahoma State maybe being the clear favorite of the Big 12 as some other folks.

Not as concerned about Coach Gundy and maybe what some of the people think about him as maybe a lot of the national reporters might believe. All right, we'll get to a break. Come back. Something interesting happened in Major League Baseball yesterday, and I want to know if you agree with the move that took place. We'll discuss it next on Mac and Cube in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kublik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than...

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