Oklahoma State Cowboys College Football Pregame Quote, 12/29/2021

Morning. Just happy to be in town. This is a great bowl. We are excited to be here. We had that battle versus Baylor in the Big 12 Championship game and to settle into this bowl is an honor. We are excited to go and ready to get going for Notre Dame.

Well, obviously it sounds like Jaylen Warren is going to be eligible and healthy to play in this game. How big of an impact is that for your play-calling and offense as a whole to have him back and healthy?

There’s no question. He was our go-to guy all year long. To have him back and available for this game, at least so we think, that’s going to make a difference. The kid is a great player and he’s a spark plug for our offense. And the kids love him and they rally around him. So, yes, it’s a difference maker for us.

Kasey, looking at Notre Dame and kind of scouting their defense, that safeties group has sort of been a little bit ramshackled over the course of the year but has found its own over the late portion of the season. When you are preparing with Spencer [Sanders], what have you seen from that group and what they have?

They are sound all the way across the board, not just the safeties. I’m talking about their defense as a group. They run well to the ball. They play hard. They are an aggressive defense. They do a lot of things on the backend that make it hard for a quarterback. So we have got our hands full with this group for sure. This is one of the better defenses that we have seen, without question.

The safeties, they do a great job. I mean, they really do. They fit. They know where they are supposed to be. Like I said, they run to the ball. We have got to make sure that we are on point, too, because this is going to be one heck of a challenge.

With Spencer [Sanders], that December 4th game is going to be almost a month in the rear view by the time you guys take the field on Saturday. And he said that game is behind him. But how do you put a performance like that behind him? How do you coach him toward that?

I think he put it behind him going into that last drive. In that Baylor game, we went 90 yards, obviously, everybody knows we didn’t get the last six inches or so. But he put together one hell of a drive.

I think he put it behind him before we ever got to that point. Right now, as we move into it, I don’t think he’s thinking about it at all. The kid is pretty resilient. We all saw that on the final drive of the game.

Kasey, what do you need out of Spencer [Sanders] on Saturday? Is it anything different than each game throughout the year?

That’s a really good question. The thing we need from him, and it’s always been this way, is just to manage the game. Having Jaylen [Warren], at least I think, available for the game is going to make a difference. He’s a hell of a player and to be able to just get him the football and get him running will make a difference for us.

So I think it just comes back to Spencer, again, managing the game and making good decisions with the football. If he doesn’t like the throw, not to force it. just run it, because he’s a talented runner as well.

If he just pulls it down and takes off running, they are going to have a hard time tackling the guy. Everybody does. He just has got to believe in his ability to do that. So, again, just managing for him. I think that’s the deal.

Another Spencer [Sanders] question, if you don’t mind. Could you assess what he’s given you this season? What’s been his biggest contribution to your offense on or off the field, locker room, practice field, game field? What has he done for you?

He brings an energy for us to practice. That’s one. The kid is just a live wire. (Laughter) And as we all see him, he’s a very emotional kid, and he plays that way in practice as well, but he understands.

And the big thing is for us with our offense, there’s a lot of things going on for the quarterback. And he’s now at a point in his career where he can just go out there and function without really thinking about the calls coming in and how to deal it out or how to dial it out to the rest of the team, the rest of the offense.

He’s at that point now where he’s very comfortable with what we are doing. So I think that’s probably the number one thing that he brings to the table for us right now, is just this ability to have a comfort out there about him. He’s not panicked about things. He’s not missing signals. He’s not getting himself caught up in a situation where he can’t get himself out of it, as far as understanding the play.

Do we wish he would pull it down sometimes and take off and run? For sure. I just said that a little bit ago, because he can go. That’s him. He’s now comfortable with what we are doing.

You have been searching for things at different points this season, especially with your numbers down at certain positions. Has his stabilizing sort of factor been maybe overlooked or underrated along that route?

Yes, the thing is there’s no question about that, because in the beginning of the year, I think we threw the ball, what, seven times or eight times versus Boise, something like that. It was crazy.

We just didn’t have a receiving corps at that time. We were depleted at that point. And his (Spencer Sanders) ability to run the football and obviously Jaylen [Warren] stepping forward in that game as well gave us an opportunity to do something different on offense. We are not an eight-times-a-game throw team. That’s not us. That’s not who we want to be.

But he gave us that flexibility. Then later on in the year, we started to get banged up a little bit at running back and banged up a little bit at the offensive line position. And now we can kind of pitch the ball around a little bit. We’ll bring the receivers back in. So, yes, there’s a flexibility about him that he brings.

I’m not sure if there’s any one facet of his game that’s just completely dominant, but he’s very good at all of them. He can run it. He can move it. He settled into our system, the way I was talking about earlier, and certainly can throw the football. He’s a pretty good quarterback all the way around, just a well-rounded kid.

You and your family used to live in Arizona, right? What is it like to be back?

Yeah, three years. It’s great. This is a great town out here. And like I said earlier, it’s a great bowl game. This is kind of a bookend for me. My first bowl game here was the Fiesta Bowl, so this is exciting for us to get back here.

My daughter just got back in. She was in Paris for a little bit. So she just got back into town, and it’s exciting to see her. She is going to be gone for a long time, as you know. You know who she is. So it’s good to have her back.

I also wanted to ask about Tay Martin. There’s been a lot of talk about the super seniors on defense. For you, seeing Tay as a super senior on offense, what has it been like to have him here in the receiving corps working with the group that’s otherwise been so young this season?

He’s a talented kid, and he comes to work and he practices hard every day. Our guys love him. He’s a character. He’s so funny. And our kids, they think the world of Tay.

And for him to be out here and be a part of our program right now is huge. I can’t say enough good things about the kid. He’s a great route runner to watch play. And like I said before, our players love him.

So he’s out there. If I ask him to run a route or demonstrate something for the guys, he’s always going to jump up there and take the front of the line and go execute it. For the most part, it looks exactly what I think it’s going to look like, what I want it to look like, and demonstrate that to the kids. So he’s been fantastic for us.

This is a little bit of self-evaluation, but you are about to finish your second year as a coordinator. How have you grown? What lessons have you learned? And what do you want to improve on?

Well, the lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t come in ‚Äì our offense, as you know, it’s been built around just throwing it a million times a game.

And what I have learned over the two years is that you have to be able to morph a little bit and adapt. And certainly we’ve had some things thrown at us over last few years, for sure, offensively from an injury standpoint, just a collection of things.

And just trying to find a way to win. I think when we go into the war room, so to speak, every week, we are always looking for what gives us an advantage to win the game, not necessarily score 50 points or take shots to try and score 50 points. It’s more about getting the W. I know it sounds trite, but it’s really the truth.

With as well as our defense has played, we just want to put ourselves in a position to get that W, at least several times throughout the year.

There’s times where it’s all come together and we are out there. We are fully loaded. The gun is fully loaded, so to speak, and we can just go play ball. We’ve had that a couple of times this year.

But the lesson that I’ve learned is just try to find a way to win and not necessarily stick with what you have done previously in the ten years prior. Throwing it 50 times a game doesn’t make sense sometimes when you have the defense that we have and perhaps the receiving corps.

I think the one thing I had is as you move into year three, obviously, we know you have one more game left, but what do you aim to improve as coordinator?

Well, I think we have got to develop the pass game a little bit more. Like I was saying, to take the pressure off the offensive line, we have relied heavily on our front this year.

From week to week, the game plan has changed and morphed to who we have personnel-wise, especially in the skill.

But moving forward into year three, I think if we can get to the point where we can spread it out a little bit more, take the pressure off the front, deal the football out to some skill kids and let them run in space, I think that is the key right now, because the defenses are just so good. They are bringing pressure from all over the place.

And when that happens, and now you are relying on your front to block every single look that they see, and they are not lining up in quarters, four-three, and just quarters every single time and just bringing a Sam blitz here and there. They are doing stuff all over the yard. They have got defensive linemen here and there and 32 fronts. It’s wild! It’s not your old-school defenses that we saw in the 2015 range.

So you have got to be able to get the ball out on the perimeter, I think, and alleviate some of that and put numbers back in your favor and, like I said, take a lot of pressure off the offensive line.

That’s the direction we have to go. And a lot of it is within recruiting and getting those guys out there that can make plays in space and give them the football and, ultimately, take the pressure off the quarterback and the offensive line.

Kasey, you mentioned that the guys rally around Jaylen [Warren]. What is it about him that kind of draws that in and makes that happen?

Two things. One is he’s an extremely, extremely tough kid. Absolutely no fear factor at all. Runs downhill. That’s why everybody loves him, and everybody loves him in the stands for that same reason.

What you see in the stands is how he is in practice, too. Every single snap, he is going to hit somebody right in the teeth. Our kids love it, and that’s what football is all about. It’s a physical game. And then the other thing is he practices extremely hard.