MIKE GUNDY'S TIRED, SO TIRED

Mike Gundy is candid, maybe too much so for his own good. That candor got him to the title of World's Most Forty Year Old Man, a title sticking with him even at the age of 44 going on 45. It also means he says honest, awesome things like all but saying you'd rather be watching a shootout like Kansas State/Oklahoma after LSU and Alabama had a paint-drying contest to decide the SEC this year. (And that was the title game, dog-murder in the Dome excused.)

He's also honest in the really interesting ways, like when he talks about the weird, harried life of a college coach whose recruiting never stops. When do 16 year olds call 44 year old men late night? When they've stolen a car and have been arrested, when something really, really Chris Hansen-ish is happening, or when you're a college football coach.

I field phone calls all night. I can just not take a call after 10:30 p.m. and my phone will still ring, and it’s 2013 kids, 2014 kids. I have to make a choice when I talk on the phone. If my kids are in the car, I have to tell them quit talking. I can do that forever. You can stop recruiting and still keep the job if you want, but you won’t be very good.

It is a little window into the strange existence of a football coach he gives here. It is also a gift, since the idea of Mike Gundy driving around hollering for his kids to "HUSH THE HELL UP DADDY'S GOTTA RECRUIT" is funny in the painfully real one. (Mike Gundy would have been a terrific scary/angry bus driver.)