Landry Jones Gets Last Laugh On Todd Monken

No one is ever going to accuse Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Todd Monken of being muzzled when it comes to speaking his mind. In two seasons as the Cowboys' offensive coordinator he has helped produce a conference championship and elevate OSU back to being a regular on the Big 12 map. So you can understand why he may have an ego roughly the size of Texas.

It's that ego that prompted him to make Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones the brunt of one of his rants this past spring when talking with ESPN reporter David Ubben.

"It didn't take long when ol' (Ryan) Broyles went down and (Oklahoma) started running (Blake Bell) to think, ‘Do we have our guy?' That didn't take long," Monken told Ubben. "Landry Jones went from like, 'I'm the man,' to all of a sudden, 'I haven't thrown a touchdown pass (and) I'm fumbling it over my head at Oklahoma State. I gotta go back and see my quarterback guru.' "

Of course Landry Jones had possibly the worst performance of his Oklahoma football career in the 2011 Bedlam game and Oklahoma State's 44-10 win in that game snapped an eight-year losing skid to the Sooners and the arrival of Monken happened to coincide with that. In his mind, that gave him the right to call out Jones and mock the season-ending injury of All-American receiver Ryan Broyles.

Apparently what escaped Monken was the fact that Bedlam is an annual affair and it is historically tilted heavily in Oklahoma's favor. That could be the only logic for calling out the all-time winningest quarterback in Sooner football history.

To his credit, Jones didn't immediately respond to Monken, choosing instead to wait until the fall to share his response. His rebuttal wasn't in the form of words though; instead it was a bunch of numbers posted on the scoreboard. At the end of the day he had amassed 500 passing yards, three touchdowns, a 51-48 victory and a 3-1 career record against Monken's Cowboys.

On Monday Jones was named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week for his Bedlam performance, even further pointing out the fact that Monken's rant was as off based as his assumption that one game earned him the right to take shots at college kids from a rival school.

Even with all that Landry Jones did last weekend to push Oklahoma to their 83 Bedlam football victory, Monken's worst enemy may have been himself. It's ironic that he was making light of Oklahoma football injuries in the spring but he had to enter the game with his third string quarterback. Even at that the game plan was superb and OSU quarterback Clint Chelf performed admirably... until the game reached overtime. It was there that both Monken and Chelf seemed to hit the wall.

Despite the fact that Joseph Randle was gashing the Sooner defense for an average of over five yards per carry and Chelf was only completing 51% of his passes, Monken chose to attack the Oklahoma defense through the air. Four of OSU's five plays in their overtime possession were passing plays which resulted in the Cowboys having to settle for a field goal and left the door open for Brennan Clay to end the game in the spectacular fashion that he did. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you ask me but then again, neither does calling out one of the Big 12's best quarterbacks while gloating in victory. You kind of get the impression that as long a Monken is around, bulletin board material will be as well.