I don't know about you, but when I watch Mike Gundy's post-game press conference I feel like I can detect that he is a little upset with Jenni Carlson.
What is the deal with OSU football coaches and post-game press conferences? First Les Miles responds to a Bedlam loss by challenging any "sucker" in the country, and now Mike Gundy decides a victory over Texas Tech is the best place to try out his Bobby Knight impression?
Frankly, I am of two minds about this. On one hand, Gundy is largely correct on the merits. I've defended Jenni Carlson's feature writing occasionally here in the comments -- and I do think she's an easy target for unfair criticism -- but she really struggles, for whatever reason, as a columnist.
The article in question struck me as really bad when I read it this morning, mainly for the wild speculation. What we've seen this past week has been the local media spending hours and column inches interpreting a five-second clip of a laughing Bobby Reid, and all sorts of pundits extrapolating what that really means and what kind of person Bobby Reid is. That's sad, and frankly, pathetic, and indicative of the sort of thing that happens all too often in our local media. You'll notice Carlson's story isn't sourced at all, instead the entire premise is based on "rumors and rumblings." To be fair, it wasn't just her that went overboard with the Bobby Reid stuff this week, but for whatever reason she got the brunt of Gundy's criticism.
So I can understand where Mike Gundy is coming from. But wow, was this the wrong way to express his feelings. At one point he screams "I'm a man! I'm forty!" Which is, I suppose, true on the facts, but the last time I checked not many mature 40-year-old men accost other adults in public the way Gundy did. In many ways, I really do sympathize with him, but ten years from now no one will remember whether or not he was making a good point; they'll remember him ranting in a press conference like Jim Traber on the radio.
After weighing all of my feelings, the one thing I can say for certain is that I'm glad this happened. If nothing else, it should provide some good fodder until next week's games. The only disappointment is that no one has shown video of Carlson's reaction during the tirade. Surely, with all the cameras in the room someone got a clip of that.
Anyway, what was your favorite part of the incident? I'm torn between Gundy saying he hopes that Jenni Carlson will someday have kids that other people belittle and the weird applause at the end of his speech. Who was that? My money's on Greg Swaim and Robert Allen...
