Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/we-offered-him-a-great-package-gundy-talks-knowles-departure/
‘We got outbid considerably.’
1 Like
The defense held OU to 24 points. Not their fault other parts of the team are coughing up the ball. They held everyone to under 25.
3 Likes
“Gundy said. “We have a limitation here, to a certain extent, to keep everybody kind of tied into the same salary scale.”
Unless you’re the payroll bandit named Mike Gundy.
I’m not mad at Knowles or Gundy. The landscape of college football is changing considerably. I pray OSU isnt left behind. If Boone was still alive Knowles probably would had got paid a kings ransom. There’s a saying in life I been told before “you get what you pay for”. If I was a top defensive coordinator I’d probably take the highest bidder as well unless I was with a yearly national championship contender team with some really good incentives or bonuses with it.
I find it funny that I said over a month ago that OSU had better pay Knowles $2 million a year or he was gone. Pretty close to the mark.
I like Gundy, I think he’s been a good coach and done pretty well for a school that has not traditionally been a football power and that doesn’t reside near a major city that’s a draw for recruits. Sometimes though he says just absolutely boneheaded things.
The pay scale thing is stupid. Even Dunn accepts he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, in no way is he equivalent to Knowles and his salary should not have been used as a yardstick for keeping Knowles. Gundy said just a few weeks ago that without the defense’s superb play, OSU would have lost more than a few that they won. The offense sputtered through the season - sometimes good, sometimes bad. So no Big 12 championship game, no New Year’s Day Bowl. Having a consistent top-10 defense gets you listed in the pre-season top 25, which leads to more national TV coverage, which leads to better recruits, guys that will play in the NFL some day. As Gundy himself said a few weeks ago, you have to pay to play big time football, and OSU chose not to pay.
And the whole “we’re not poaching coaches from other teams before the bowls”? That’s just dumb. Didn’t stop USC from getting Lincoln, LSU from getting Kelly, or Ohio State from getting Knowles. Did OSU honestly think no one was going to offer Knowles a job until after the Fiesta Bowl? Unless they’re in the CFP, the bowl games are just for the payout and TV time. They have no meaning. Big time football goes out and gets the coaches they want, when they want them. There is no honor system. Recruiting is NOW. Recruit a coach after bowl season, its going to be that much harder to get someone to move, basically wasting all that time they just spent recruiting for players they won’t coach (unless the recruits also jump to OSU). So, we better hope Joe Bob is up to the task - both in recruiting now and in coaching next fall. Signs are positive, but time will tell.
1 Like
To be fair Gundy doesn’t make the payroll decisions, he gets to take whatever pay OSU offers just like everyone else.
2 Likes
Actually….Gundy does get to make that decision. Gundy wouldn’t keep getting increased salaries and extensions if it weren’t for his vicious flirting tactics with other jobs. Is that seriously what the OSU administration is pandering on?
The administration should’ve bucked up to him and called his bluff “Oh, you want to go to Tennessee? Well thanks Mike and good luck. We’ll see how long you last out in good ole SEC country!!”
Gundy would’ve never left. Why? Because he knows OSU is the only place he can be at making the money he does by just getting bowl eligible.
I tend to disagree on a couple of points:
- I doubt the pay scale comment by Gundy is in reference to what Dunn makes. I assume that OSU operates like a typical fortune 500 company and sets payrolls accordingly. In that regard there are many factors, mostly oriented toward external variables, that are used to determine what the pay should be for a particular job.
- You are correct in that it seems that there is no Honor system but just because all these other teams “poached” their coaches doesn’t make it right. I believe that something needs to be done about the coaching carousel taking place prior to season end before it has a big negative impact on the sport
- To say that bowls don’t mater is just wrong. Maybe they don’t matter to you which is fine. However they do matter to hundreds of thousands of fans, players and coaches, this is something that can’t be disputed.
2 Likes
Nope! He may be influencing the pay decision but he is not making it. Big difference plus I don’t see a problem with it. He is just taking advantage of market forces just like all of us would.
2 Likes
At the end of the day he is going to get over 2 mil a year with incentives and coach at Ohio State with the best athletes in the world and a chance to compete for national Championships. OSU never was in position to compete with that, OSU is trying to build a brand and build a program and we’ve only been trying to do that for 20 years now, a lot of the other schools have close to 100 years of that same brand building. It’s going to take time but OSU just has to continue to make a genuine commitment to the football program pour resources into it and stack 10 win seasons. They have the potential in the new Big 12 to be the leader of the conference and with playoff expansion coming sooner or later they’ll have an avenue to the playoff if they can win the conference. This is an important stretch for the program and we just need to continue to make good hires and recruit better and see where it takes us. We’ll have a chance we just need to seize the opportunity.
2 Likes
Agree 100%
1 Like
Nice guys finish last now days
1 Like
There is some money involved in playing in bowl games as well.
I disagree with you on bowl games. Bowl games mater to the fans that haven’t figured out that bowl games don’t matter LOL. As soon as they figure out a way to expand the playoff bowl games will be gone and everything else will be decided around that only.
I think he means that depending on contract wording, some coaches may have to actually coach in the bowl game to get the bowl game bonus.
So you build a program by letting future athletes know that if you get a good coach, he won’t be there long cause we’re not going to start to try to compete for coaches. We are going to just promote from within and if it takes 4 or 5 years for them to get it, well so be it. Just hope you are not one of the players there while they are figuring it out.
The way Gundy builds a program.
1 Like
Check, check, and check! Thank you - great comments.
Yep forgot about that one, Also the team gets extra practices that they wouldn’t get if they didn’t go to a bowl.
1 Like
Well there are 100’s of thousands of fans who haven’t figured it out, including me
1 Like
The school gets a payout for the bowl too no?
1 Like