Oklahoma State has announced that head football coach Mike Gundy has been relieved of his duties, bringing an end to a 20-year run at the school. The final straw seems to have come after last Friday's embarrassing 19-12 loss to Tulsa at home, which officially dropped the Cowboys to 1-2 for the season. The game was Tulsa's first win over OSU since 1998, and the first win at OSU's stadium since 1951, and came off the heels of a 69-3 shellacking at the hands of Oregon. In a statement released to the media, Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg had this to say:
"Cowboy Football reached an unprecedented level of success and national prominence under Coach Gundy's leadership, I believe I speak for OSU fans everywhere when I say that we are grateful for all he did to raise the standard and show us all what is possible for Oklahoma State football."
In the run-up to this firing, Gundy had made a stink about how the team's problems weren't due to his own performance as a coach, but rather to the fact that NIL and the transfer portal are unfair to little ol' Oklahoma State, which can't afford fancy players or cool uniforms designed by Nike. Without T. Boone Pickens to bankroll OK State's lifestyle, all Gundy can really do is cry foul about everyone else. This makes Gundy the latest casualty of the new college sports paradigm, to which certain traditionalist coaches have proven unable or unwilling to adapt.
So what do we make of the Gundy era at Oklahoma State? Well, for the 10-plus years that made up the era's good times, whether the Cowboys were better than expected or worse than predicted, they were never the one thing they have become lately: boring. Gundy's teams were always proudly underrated, a David in a conference of Goliaths, and Gundy was more than happy to play up this role. His overall approach and demeanor was captured well in the viral moment, which celebrated its 18th anniversary on Monday, that continues to define him.
In less successful recent years, Gundy lost the only reason anyone had to put up with his nonsense: wins. Unsurprisingly, this only led to him doubling down on the dickheadedness. An indicative controversy came in 2020, during the heart of the George Floyd protests, when he wore an OAN shirt and had to apologize for it after his players spoke up about their discomfort with their coach publicly supporting a right-wing news outlet. But Gundy has always liked to slide in little comments that show his true character. A good example happened last year when, in the midst of a three-win season, he called his critics a bunch of broke boys and losers:
“In most cases, the people that are negative and voicing their opinions are the same ones that can’t pay their own bills. They’re not taking care of themselves. They’re not taking care of their own family. They’re not taking care of their own job, but they have an obligation to speak out and complain about others because it makes them feel better. But then in the end, when they go to bed at night, they’re the same failure that they were before they said anything negative about anybody else.”
– Mike Gundy, responding to fan criticism
I'll remember Gundy as a petulant man with a whole lot of energy that ultimately fizzled out once he ran out of tricks and benefactors to keep his teams competitive. Just like the Wizard of Oz, a look behind the curtain revealed Gundy to be a small man with a big mouth, which has finally been shut.
