Bill Haisten
Tulsa World Sports Columnist
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Daniel Shular
Tulsa World Photojournalist
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STILLWATER — It is entirely possible that there are current Oklahoma State University students whose parents were Oklahoma State University students when Mike Gundy was introduced as the Cowboy head football coach.
During the 20½ years that OSU had — for the most part — football stability and many more successes than failures, this university had four presidents, three athletic directors and five men’s basketball coaches.
In 2014, Gundy said this to the Tulsa World: “The way I look at it is, whether they like me or not, if they want me out of here, they’ll have to run me out of here.”
In 2019, I wrote this: Gundy will not leave OSU until he retires, and he will never be fired.
Gundy was correct and I could not have been more wrong.
For a long time, though, I could not envision any “Gundy gets fired” scenario — just like I couldn’t envision that Oklahoma State football ever again would be as broken as it is today.
On Tuesday, there was athletic director Chad Weiberg’s acknowledgement of the shocking firing of Mike Gundy, who apparently will collect every dime of a $15 million buyout. The Gundy era ended during a meeting in Weiberg’s office.
Through three games of the 35th season of his relationship with the Cowboy football program, the 58-year-old Gundy was the victim of circumstances that mostly were self-inflicted.
There could be the presumption that Gundy is gone because:
He was slow to accept the terms of today’s NIL-revenue-portal definition of college football.
His Cowboy teams are 16-21 since midseason 2022.
The 2024 season was awful and included an 0-9 stumble through the Big 12 schedule.
The 2025 Cowboys were smashed by Oregon and lost to the University of Tulsa last week.
For more than a decade, most of OSU’s offensive lines have been average or terrible.
There hasn’t been a consistently reliable Cowboy QB since Mason Rudolph in 2017.
OSU’s current roster appears to have less talent than any other Big 12 roster.
Each of those points was a factor in the university decision to fire by far the most accomplished football coach in school history, but the Gundy-OSU divorce process seems to have begun nearly 11 months ago — on Nov. 4, 2024.
It was on that date — during a Q&A with media members — that Gundy made pointlessly harsh remarks that were critical of fans. He later insisted that he hadn’t targeted OSU fans for criticism, but still, at all levels of the Oklahoma State family, there were responses of anger.
A month later, there was a Board of Regents meeting on the Oklahoma State campus. Regents discussed Gundy’s employment status. By the end of that weekend, Gundy accepted the terms of a severely revised contract. There was a $1 million pay cut. Deleted from the contract was the rollover clause that essentially meant he had a perpetual five-year contract.
I predicted in January and again in August that this season would be Gundy’s finale because it felt that he wouldn’t forgive OSU for what happened during the Dec. 6 weekend. And also, because of the frustrating annual challenges of having to rebuild the roster.
Really, the Gundy-OSU marriage seemed to change after he scored his first big contract in January 2012 — after his best team, the 2011 Big 12 champion Cowboys, had been national-title good but didn’t get to play for the national title because of a missed field goal at Iowa State.
For years, there were the Gundy vs. Boone Pickens and Mike Holder narratives. I never understood why Gundy wasn’t on a best-friend basis with Pickens and Holder, but I also recognize that gigantic egos were involved.
Without the immense contributions of Gundy, Pickens and Holder, Oklahoma State football would not have become what it became.
Less than two years ago, when the Cowboys recorded an unforgettable Bedlam victory in the final meeting of OSU and OU as conference rivals, Gundy was the King of the Cowboys. I don’t know that his approval rating was at 100%, but it was close.
More recently — as there has been so much lousy, losing football — there was the erosion of support from donors, administrators and fans.
In 2005, Gundy was promoted to the head-coaching position after having been Les Miles’ offensive coordinator.
The final page in this sad chapter of the Mike Gundy story was written on Tuesday, and now Oklahoma State begins its first actual football head-coaching search in 25 years.
Chad Weiberg is charged with overseeing that search, which has to end with the introduction of a coach who can save Cowboy football.
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Bill Haisten
Tulsa World Sports Columnist
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Daniel Shular
Tulsa World Photojournalist
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