Saturday's game is being hailed as an early barometer on the relative strength of the nation's two most powerful conferences. It's going to be cattle versus cotton, cowpokes versus rednecks, beer versus bourbon. In the conference wars, the Dawgs and the Pokes is this week's marquee game. (Bama and Virginia Tech is appealing, but I'm not sure anyone is seriously comparing the relative strengths of those two conferences.) After looking through Okie State's staff, though, their coaching staff sure does have a southern flavor. Mike Gundy is one of only fourteen FBS coaches to ascend to the head coaching job at their alma mater. Gundy also has two other Okie State alums on his staff, DC Bill Young and tight ends coach Doug Meacham. Of the remainder of the OSU staff, all either graduated from an SEC school (Robert Gillespie - UF '05, Jason Jones - Bama '01, Robert Matthews - UGA '98, and Joe Wickline - UF '83) or was a southern native and played in the South (Gunter Brewer - Wake Forest, Joe DeForest - ULL, and Glenn Spencer - Georgia Tech). Co-offensive coordinator Gunter Brewer is the son of former Ole Miss coach Billy Brewer. Those are some pretty deep southern ties for a Big 12 team.
Mike Bobo should know his opposing QB coach pretty well. OSU coach Robert Matthews was his backup teammate at UGA for a couple of years under coach Donnan. Matthews was also a former Georgia high school coach at Shiloh and North Gwinnett.
So when the Pokes start talking bad about us parochial southern hicks who marry our cousins and can't read, you might mention that we're from the same places their coaches are from.
Quinton
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