Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/believe-it-or-not-on-mike-gundy-and-the-2020-season/
A high-level view on the state of the program at Oklahoma State.
Any concern that Knowles could be on the move?
Totally agree Gundy is the best coach we’ve had and/or possibly will ever have. But the narcissism he displayed in hiring Yurcich to show the world it was about him and not Holgy and Monken has dug a mighty deep hole. His general obstinance towards recruiting has filled said hole with water. We are ranked between #42-48 in 2021 recruiting class with signing day around the corner.
He’ll get his chance for us to see if he’s changed his ways for reasons mentioned, as eating that much money right now isn’t palatable. But I’m really struggling to see how this ends well all things considered.
“Should OSU fire Mike Gundy? Don’t get me twisted: Probably not!“
If you have an employee that works for you who did great the first 5 years, then was slightly above average 5 years after that, and then has been average to below average the last 3 years. As a supervisor are you going to counsel and speak to that individual? Or are you going to continue giving them pay raises and let them keep their job? Even if they are costing you money, time, and resources with no benefit to be seen for the foreseeable future?
“You don’t just boot a top-25 coach in college football without the sure thing of knowing you’ve got something better.”
When you have a “Top 25 Coach” that has a conference record of 13-13 so far since the beginning of the 2018 season, and holds the attitude that he’s the best thing for OSU football (despite mediocre seasons), and that attitude is reinforced by fans screaming for him to stay, and an administration that gives him a pay raise when Gundy makes threats. Then I would start looking elsewhere. The only fan base majority that wants Gundy to stay around are OU fans. They love Mike Gundy.
“ Who’d have thought OSU would be 5-3 in league play and out of the conference title picture in the first week of December? ”
I did. Because Gundy has proven to us since 2011 that the only way he can get 2nd place in the conference is by hoping and praying some other teams upset others at the top of the conference. Just like in 2015 when Texas upset Baylor it moved OSU to 2nd place and then we go to see our “Top 25” head coach get destroyed before halftime even hit against Ole Miss.
If your a football school and you want to be a football school then you do. If you want to be a golf and wrestling school then you stay put.
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We have seen how good of a coach and how
innovated gundy is since he has had a good offensive coordinator. We have also seen how good a recruiter gundy is over the years and if I’m off base here tell me, but he is flat out not good at both. It’s just how many years after 2020 are we going to be repeating ourselves. The game has passed him by and the good coaches that have been at a place as long as gundy (Nick Saban) change their philosophy because football changes and gundy refuses to just like less miles and he was fired after winning a national championship but like I said they are a football school. Got to get rid of mike Holder berbore change will happen.
How many times do we have to hear, “We need to do better as coaches”, or “I’m excited about the future” before decide that he can’t do better as a coach or that the future is not as bright as he thinks. He has reached his level of coaching ability and cannot do any better than slightly above .500 and middle of the pack.
Like most osu fans wanted to see what gundy could do with nfl talent on his team since he’s so good at making 3 stars into 4 stars and still middle of the pack in the big twelve lol.
I agree with some of what you’re saying here, but I think the Yurcich hire was good and underrated and unfairly gets poo pood even in hindsight. To me, not a coincidence that OSU’s offense has struggled since he left, and neither Sean Gleeson nor Kasey Dunn have consistently put up quality production on offense as coordinators since Yurcich left.
Yeah, agree with some of what you’re saying, I just think – as hard as it is to swallow – that college football by nature is somewhat cyclical. Gundy’s not done well of late, but his body of work is stellar, he remains heavily invested, and the hope is that he can turn it around. That is a pragramatist’s view. As you can tell by my article, I’m skeptical that can happen given the trend of the program, how recruiting has gone and the immediate outlook. Hope I am wrong.
The offense is struggling because of injuries and a receivers coach learning how to be an offensive coordinator, and a quarterback who is also learning. The current great coaches have great talent playing for them across the board. Gundy has a handful of great players and the rest are mediocre. The results show it. The thing this team needs the most is more 4 star recruits and an experienced, highly successful offensive coordinator who will insist on bringing in a new playbook as part of the hire. I like Gundy but I would tear up his contract in order to significantly reduce his salary. He is overpaid based on his results.
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Here is the fundamental flaw in your article and what I read as it’s premise.
“… and faces arguably his toughest task ahead over the next several months of building back up confidence in fans that he is still the right man for the job.”
The issue is that he has absolutely zero interest, willingness or desire to build back confidence in either the fans or the administration at Ok State. He does not care what the fans think, what the athletic or regent level administration thinks or what anyone else thinks. The ride is over. The only question is when are we going to make him exit the car.
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Mike Gundy
October 28, 2018
And we really are supposed to believe this guy cares about fan confidence? Maybe he’ll start caring when we have lower fan turnout and he can’t keep getting pay raises.
Maybe I’m wrong, but for me, this is starting to look an awful lot like that last years of Mack Brown at Texas. It’s time for some new blood.
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The Gundy bashing has begun. This isn’t all on Gundy no natter what everyone thinks. Did many forget he took a pay cut of 1mil after the OANN shirt fishing trip? There is a lot of people out there that complain about the lack of high star recruits. A lot of those recruits are to me, are considered “undesirable” with our program.
I’m proud T Boone donated and insisted we keep it clean and play by the rules. This has never been an issue for Gundy. He has high moral character which is a good thing. The win at all cost mentality is what the OU’s and the Alabama’s of the world have. We had a NC team but got robbed from claiming the chance to play the game.
It’s a matter of getting the right talent. Pretty sure most of the people complaining about Gundy were on the Spencer Sanders train. With O-Line injuries and lack of being able to read the defenses as quickly as he should, combined with youth and lack of experience… There you have the results.
My lunch break is over but feel free to show me and everyone else your vast knowledge of football and why I am in the wrong. Remember, Gundy kicked the fastest player in the NFL off the team. At least he has standards and abides by them. Go Pokes!!
TC had a lot of talent. If given another year it would have been on full display.
I understand the angst but how did that replace Mack Brown thing work out for Texas??
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I wish there were a way to both keep Gundy and ensure that we could keep him out of the ears of his coordinators. In a lot of aspects, OSU won’t be able to find better than him. But in others, he gets in his own way entirely too much.
There’s a never-ending hypocritical argument going on with the program right now, being that both Gundy recruits poorly and he has too much talent to be performing this bad. That argument directly contradicts itself. Which is it? I think it’s the latter. Recruiting isn’t as much of an issue to me because I think stars are arbitrary. Can he get more 4 and 5 star players? Sure, but we can’t expect a school like osu to have the type of recruits the blue bloods get. That being said, he and his staff are one of the best in the country at finding needles in a haystack, and constantly pull in 3 and low-4 stars that turn into NFL talents. For example, this year’s class was not a highly ranked class, but I’d argue osu has more talent than anyone in the league from top to bottom. He’s not getting the job done with them though. No excuse for having his worst offensive output in arguably his entire tenure with guys like hubbard, Wallace, sanders, stoner, etc on your team. That’s not a recruiting issue, that’s a coaching issue. Monken was the best and most effective OC we’ve ever had, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that he was the most in control of his offense of any of our OCs. If Gundy would get out of the way and shut his mouth when it came to those aspects we’d be fine. But I don’t know if there’s a way to ever make sure that could be done. Which makes moving on from him at least feasible.
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I think next season is highly dependent on what seniors decide to exercise their extra year of eligibility and stay. If the majority of them leave, the defense will be pretty much depleted. If they stay, the defense could be strong again. I think the offense will be poor either way with the current staff. Not a knock on Dunn, as he’s been great in development, but he hasn’t shown that he can call a game. That may be mike getting in the way, but either way I don’t see that ended after this year.
To be fair, he’s not saying he doesn’t care about fan’s input. He’s saying that he’s a better football coach than Joe15. And he’s 10,000% correct. Let me ask, back when you all were crying for him to replace TC with a true freshman sanders, looking back do you think that’d the correct decision now? Taylor could play, and showed it in a bunch of games. Maybe if they had a Patrick Mahomes or someone behind him I’d agree, but in that situation Taylor was the right choice. Taylor was and still is one of the most unfairly scrutinized players OSU has ever had in my opinion. He literally carried the rest of the team to wins vs Texas, West Virginia, and Boise state and was one play away from pulling off a miracle in Norman. I understand the gripes with him 100% but that excerpt isn’t the correct one to make your point with. He was right in that case.
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