From wire reports

Gundy’s game

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy earned a bit of unwanted fame with his “I’m a man!” rant that made him a YouTube sensation. It didn’t take him long to reference it in his media session on Tuesday.

“I’ve been a popular guy over the last year,” he said.

Gundy earned his fame with a tirade following a win over Texas Tech last season. He took exception with a column in The Daily Oklahoman and berated the author for criticizing a college athlete, yelling out “I’m a man! I’m 40!” during the post-game news conference.

So what was the first question after his opening remarks on Tuesday? You guessed it.

“You’d have to ask the players how it’s affected the team,” Gundy said. “I don’ think they put as much into it as maybe what the media does. I think in society today that those are the things that people thrive on, unfortunately, in my opinion. I don’t care much for off-the-field issues and it’s not something that I contemplated.”

Spread it around

The spread offense has been a boon to the Big 12, helping teams like Missouri and Kansas transition from also-rans to national title contenders.

But for all the talk about the success offenses have with the spread, what about the defenses that have to stop it? That, uh, hasn’t been so great.

“The spread offense is a pain to stop,” Colorado safety Ryan Walters said Tuesday, the second of the Big 12’s media days. “There’s so many options, especially you see in today’s game. You’ve got to be smart players to stop the spread offense.”

The difficulty of stopping the spread is its complexity.

It’s generally run out of the shotgun, giving the quarterback extra time to survey the defense and decide what he wants to do and the defensive backfield usually gets flooded with receivers, making it hard to account for everyone. There’s plenty of options out of the formation, as well: throwing receiver screens near the sidelines, getting the ball to a running back on a swing pass or draw, having the quarterback roll out to throw a pass.