After suffering an embarrassing loss to UCF last week, Oklahoma State is back on the road this week, taking on the Houston Cougars.
Houston head coach Dana Holgorsen has some ties to OSU, for he was the offensive coordinator for the Cowboys in 2010.
OSU head coach Mike Gundy said he brought Holgorsen in because he had a history of being a good coordinator.
“He had experience calling plays, and we knew we had a lot of firepower throwing passes,” Gundy said. “He came in and put terminology together and used the talent we had.
“We would go into games with 12-15 plays, that is it. He knew we had good players, and we didn’t want to screw them up.”
When Holgorsen was at OSU, the Cowboys became a team that could run the football effectively. Gundy said that was due to what he wanted to do, and Holgorsen tying those schemes into his offense.
“There were some things I wanted to do that we integrated into his system,” Gundy said. “We tied it all together and it ended up being pretty good.”
Holgerson comes from the Mike Leach coaching tree, where the air raid offense is the main theme in those offenses.
After Holgerson left, Gundy brought in Todd Monken, who is now at Georgia. Mike Yursich then took over after Monken left.
Gundy said that one season with Holgorsen set the standard of what Oklahoma State's offense was going to be the next few seasons under Monken and later Yursich.
“Todd came in and finagled it a little bit, then Yursich came in and learned, and he worked his way through it,” Gundy said. “Now we have been flexible. We can throw it some. We can run it some, based on our talent level.”
Gundy and Holgorsen will meet up once again on Saturday at 3 p.m. The game can be seen on ESPN2.
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