Andy & Ari On3 - Mike Gundy FIRED at Oklahoma State | Where do the Cowboys go now?

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Oklahoma State has fired coach Mike Gundy after 20 years. Gundy was the best coach in Cowboys history, but he also had struggled recently to adapt to the changes in the game. The low points kept coming this season. After Oklahoma State lost 69-3 at Oregon, the Cowboys then lost to Tulsa at home. Andy and Ari break down Gundy’s career and look to who Oklahoma State might target to replace Gundy.  Our show is presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/NiNO8IxSj6k Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to a special live edition of Andy Ari and Andy and Ari on three presented by BetMGM. Mike Gundy has been fired at Oklahoma State 20 years as the head coach of the Cowboys, former Oklahoma State quarterback, the best coach they've ever had. But Ari, what makes this really complicated is he was not doing the job. He was aggressively not doing the job this year. yeah um so there's a multiple avenues that we can take on this um obviously we we know why he got fired and we'll get into that but the one thing that i wanted to get from you andy and we haven't spoken about this yet so we're just going to go off the cuff and be guys being dudes talking

about it do you think that it is in bad taste to fire a coach who is dedicated more than two decades of his life to you in the middle of the season or do you think that because it was so bad that they had a responsibility to do it now. The second thing, and also the amount of money these guys get paid, they can fire you whenever they want to. You are being paid a king's ransom to do a job, and the moment you're not doing that job, you're in danger of getting fired. Yeah.

Okay. I just wanted to get that out of the way because I do, I just, the thing that is so crazy to me about coaching that is like basically virtually not true. and most other instances in life is that if you dedicate your life like my mother has worked at Chase for 30 years like when she goes out like they will like she gets to go out on her terms

you know what I mean because there's an appreciation factor but she's not Chase's CEO yeah during a massive downturn for Chase not she's Chase the CEO doing not doing her job so like I get what you're saying but I just feel like he has given a lot and like I don't know if he actively was he actively was not doing the job,

but I feel like he just was not up to doing it the new way. So like that, you know, you get what you get in this business and it really doesn't matter, I guess, because he is getting paid so much. So let's go into the actual reason why he got fired, which is not being able or willing or, you know, having the desire to adapt to the way college football works now. And the thing that I find interesting about him, Andy,

is that the one thing that everybody will remember him for always is the I am a man, I'm 40 rant, but he went on some pretty epic rants the last few years about NIL and players and, you know, as recently as two and a half weeks ago when they were playing Oregon. And I think that as time went on in Oklahoma State started slipping out of contention in the Big 12 and becoming a shell of what they used to be under his guidance, those those commentaries on NAL, you know, started to feel more like outward resentment towards the evolution of the game. And as a result of it, yes, Oklahoma State did, you know, start paying players more as time went on, but they never were fully engaged in roster assembly at a level that they needed to be.

And he was resentful of that. And I think that if you are going to be resentful of it, you're probably not going to be successful in it. And I think that that's kind of my overarching view of why we are where we are today. Well, he came on our show. at Big 12 Media Days and said we weren't paying anybody out of the transfer portal for the last three years which you can

you can say that's a principled stand I guess for one of those years but by year three it's a gross dereliction of duty and I think he was ready to acknowledge that but yeah you talk about the week of the Oregon game and he made some comments that pissed off Dan Lannning the Oregon coach and we talked about it on the show and I think you nailed it

Because you said when we talked about those comments, they weren't really directed at Oregon. He was managing expectations for what was going to happen during that game because he's an experienced coach and he'd seen the film. He knew they were going to get obliterated and it was going to look awful. I don't know if he thought, hey, if I just say they spent more money than us, that's going to be okay. It's not okay because Oklahoma State doesn't have as much money as. is Oregon, but Oklahoma State has enough money to field a competitive football team in 2025, and they're not

competitive. They got destroyed by Oregon. They just lost to Tulsa at home. Tulsa doesn't have as much money as Oklahoma State. Tulsa should not have better players than Oklahoma State, but if you watch that game, they were very evenly matched, and for most

of the game, Tulsa was dominant. And there are other teams in the Big 12 with similar circumstances that are very good. Like, why, what is the reason that Oklahoma State can't be competitive? And I think if the answer to that question leads back to the head coach's reluctance or unwilling to evolve with the way things are done, then every single day that he is your head coach is a liability. And it is kind of funny because Oklahoma State, you know, not doing it for a year or not,

maybe not even doing it for two, you might still be able to use the players that are in your team and in your roster to get away with it or to put yourself in a position. to be competitive in games, but by the time you get the three years of it, even after the gross overcorrection, which is bringing a bunch of players in in the spring window that you don't really know much about and trying to assemble them only in fall camp, like that never was going to be enough to be competitive by year three. And you have other teams that were engaging in this behavior and doing a good job of retaining players and bringing players in who have now been in those programs for multiple years, who now in the Big 12, it's like if Oregon

played like Iowa State, Oregon might win by 25, but they're not going to do what they, like Oklahoma State didn't even belong on the same field. And you know, that's a place that doesn't tolerate this. And, you know, this is an ode to Mike Gundy, Andy. If you go back and you look over the course of the, you know, majority of his career, Oklahoma State was a consistently good football program. Like not being able to adapt or being willing to adapt became the exact opposite of what he stood for which was consistently good um and that that's a problem so you know before we keep going

down this road we need to set this up and i did a bad job at the beginning of this this is the best coach oklahoma state has ever had he turned a program that was a perennial seller dweller into one of the best and most consistent ones in the big 12 when mike gundy took the job he He was promoted following Les Miles departure for LSU in 2005. When Mike Gundy got the job, Oklahoma State was not a perennial bowl team. Like that was a big deal if they made a bowl game even. He made it where that was not only the expectation, but the absolute floor on a season. In 2011, they won the Big 12.

If they hadn't lost Iowa State on a Friday night, they would have played for the national title. That their snub from the BCS title game essentially ushered in the college football playoff created the college football playoff there's not enough praise for how good he was for as long as he was and i think the way it it sucks to see it in this way because and we've seen it with different coaches like bobby bowden was pretty unceremoniously fired at floristate it happens when when people stay too long the game evolves they don't evolve with it you know Gundy has sort of been headed this way for, it feels like a few years. Remember last year, Gundy got mad at the fans, and he said, 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. He's talking about his own fans. He's talking about Oklahoma State fans that have supported him, that continue to support him, even when he was flirting with other jobs for about 10 years.

Like, we've seen his DMs to the Tennessee AD. When John Curry was the AD at Tennessee, they fired Bush Jones, all that information came out about that coaching search. We saw John Curry's DMs with Mike Gundy. And then there were other jobs that he got linked to where he was trying to get a raise. And so there was always this kind of hostile relationship between Mike Gundy and the Oklahoma state administration and it comes to a head at the end of last season where they basically given them given an ultimatum and say either you're going to take a pay cut and we're going to cut

your buyout or we're going to fire you for cause for what you said about the fans yeah um and it's a very complicated legacy and the good news and i think going back to the way that we began the video andy of like should he have been fired in the middle of the season or fired at the end is not relevant because when coaches get fired, it's a tough time. But my hope is that in a month or a year or whatever, when the dust settles and Oklahoma State moves on, they will willingly and lovingly openly welcome him back to Oklahoma State with open arms and honor him the way that he deserves. And I think that, you know, any coach that dedicates or anybody who dedicates any block of

time this significant in their lives to a employer deserves to be, you know, appreciated. And I think that Oklahoma State fans by and large will always look back at him as one of the greater, if not the best coach in program history. Oh, no, there's no debate. He's the best coach in program history. And I also think, too, that as we're doing this video today, now that we acknowledge that it's also important to acknowledge that this is always going to be the outcome for any coach who does not want to do what needs to be done to keep up with our competitors. now you might be a legend you might be the best coach in college football you might be whatever but what you did and we're seeing it with Davosweeney right now not that he's in anywhere near of a situation that that Gundy is also a lot more my Gundy's buyout is 15 million it's it's a lot

but it's manageable if coaches are are accomplished that does not take away and I wrote this column on Saturday it does not take away the obligation to be good now you know there's only so much, you know, welfare or built in equity that you have. You know, I think that that made this a pretty easy decision. It wasn't just a reaction to losing to Tulsa, Andy. It was a reaction to the three years of behavior and the three years of not doing the job that allowed them to get to a point where this was possible. So, you know, on one hand, he is the greatest coach in Oklahoma state history, but on the other, I think it was very clear. that this is an important thing and the right thing to do.

Not every time when you fire somebody is it always the clear cut right thing. I think that in this instance, you can pretty much, you know, everybody can agree that it was time to move on. But here's the most amazing thing in JP Daniels, writes, it should be called Mike Gundy Field at Boone Pickin Stadium and Gundy deserves a statue out front. That's absolutely correct. They should name the field after him and put a statue out front. They should. they also were correct in firing him when they did both those things can be true and i hope i hope they treat it respectfully like i was in tallahassee the day bobby bowen got fired i thought

it was absolutely ridiculous i thought that the way they did it was cowardly almost the ad wouldn't even take questions on the day he fired maybe the greatest coach who ever lived and That was wrong. Like, they need to come out and be very respectful of his tenure. They need to honor him as he goes. And he may be mad and not want to talk about it and that's fine. He's his right to do whatever he wants. But Oklahoma State does need to treat this respectfully.

Even if they've been mad at him, even if he's been difficult to deal with, even if this situation's been difficult to deal with over the last couple of years, they do owe him that for sure. beyond the $15 million, they have to pay him to not work. They do owe him the respect of he's the guy who brought that program to national relevance and kept it there for a long time. Yep. And congratulations on a great career.

You know, if only you and I will be as lucky to have runs like him in our careers. But it was time to go. Yeah. So before we get on to potential Canada, for this job because there are some really interesting names out there and just from talking to people in the industry. I think this job is going to be more desirable than people think. I think there's going to be some fairly good coaches that want this job. We got to talk about the things that make Mike Gundy so beloved, not necessary beloved,

like all of it. The thing that made him the most beloved is the rant. Like the start there, And I will never forget, I was covering Florida at the time. I'm walking across the street from the athletic department offices to my car. I see Urban Meyer, who's walking out to the practice field. He was the head coach at Florida at the time. And he goes, did you see what Gundy said? And this is 2007. YouTube's a relatively new thing.

I had seen it on SportsCenter over and over again. but this is the first time really we had the opportunity for something we saw something cool on a video that we could just watch it over and over again whenever we wanted i must have watched the gundy rant a thousand times i think you could repeat it verbatim the timing of that andy was so interesting because as youtube wasn't completely where it is today obviously uh being you know almost 20 years ago when something like that happened you remember how sports center used to play stuff right like they used to on a loop every 30 minutes. And I remember that day, and they would just open up sports center with that rant, like, and you would see it eight times on national television in one given night. And it was just like a groundbreaking, groundshaking moment. And it was now funny. Like, I don't remember because I was very, I mean, I was still in college.

I wasn't in this profession yet. But like, how did, like, if that rant were to happen today, like how do you think it would have been received by fans and like were people celebrating him or calling him an asshole? I can't remember like what the tenor was. They were doing both but I think there was way more celebration because he did it in defense of a player named Bobby Reed. Now that the relationship between Bobby Reed and Mike Gundy got more complicated after that

and then they actually Bobby I think ended up working for Mike Gundy at one point down the road. So it was the evolution of that whole story was fascinating. Like Jenny Carlson, the columnist. who wrote the column that he was mad about. Like, they have a very good relationship now. She's still, you know, working in Oklahoma and asked him questions pretty much every week. And it is a, it's amazing how it's all of all.

But I remember Mason Rudolph, the great quarterback from Oklahoma State, who grew up in South Carolina. So the first awareness he had of Mike Gundy was the rant. And when Mike Gundy called to start recruiting him, he's like, oh, you're that guy. I think that people who have no appreciation for the consistency that Oklahoma State showed under his leadership are familiar with the RAN. I think the Rant is more of a calling card or more of a personal identifier for him than any of the success that he had on the field. Hit it, hit it, River, hit the Rant. Where are we at in society today? Come after me.

I'm a man. I'm 40. I'm not a kid. write something about me the last line of the rant as he walks out makes me want to puk i i love it so much i always have and and my gutty always did fun stuff like you know he'd wear the wrestling singlet to to drum up support for the wrestling program uh he'd go hunt rattlesnakes like he's an interesting guy the mullet and he embraced that like he'd lean into it and, you know, talk about, has got the person who does his mullet.

And I think he was one of the most fun characters in college football. And the other part of it is he always just said what was on his mind. Whether you agreed with him about whatever he was talking about, it didn't matter. He was just going to give you an unfiltered response. And I do appreciate that. From people in our perspective, like as much as it was, like, listen, he was on our show. what two months ago has it been two months and we say i think he he either sat next to me or between us um and he said some things were in my head i'm like oh boy i don't know that i would

have said that right like i mean like let's be honest but he always did that but he always did that and i appreciated that uh for him about him the thing that was most difficult about seeing the way that he you know he said something about ali gordon before last year he shouldn't have said okay and you know what I'm talking about yes yes the DUI thing things that he started saying at the end of the run that he shouldn't have said were a window into how it was going to end you know what I mean like that was probably you know so yeah but I think that too we have to also acknowledge the fact

that college football is evolving and all those things with roster but it's also devolving in a big way from a personality standpoint. Like all the people in college football that were like the faces of the game the last 15 years, you know, Urban Meyer, Nick Sabin, Mike Gundy, Jim Harbaugh, like we are taking a huge personality hit. Because listen, Oklahoma State wasn't going to win anything this year. I think it was apparent the second he sat next to us in Dallas and told us he was unfamiliar with 40% of his roster that we knew this wasn't going to go well. But play that clip. Play that clip. The news got the clip.

Play the clip. I almost was just, I thought this will go away. Surely this can't last. And then it just kept building momentum. And then after a point, about 18 months ago, I said, this is not going away. We're going to have to make some real adjustments here. So the truth be known, this portal class from January is the first class that we ever bought. We had not, we had not bought portal goods.

Wow. That hurt us. hurt us the last year or so from a debt standpoint and then and that was nobody's fault that's not the administration's fault not the donors that was really kind of my fault because what I had done was taken money that had been raised through donations and spread it amongst the troops somewhat evenly to the current players we didn't go out and solicit for players and pay them to come to our team we did that starting in December which I think we all would agree. If you don't do that, you're not going to survive.

Yeah. So three years to come to that last realization. Yeah, he said, you know, 18 months ago, he figured it out, which is probably about two and a half years too late. Yeah, I mean, the part of that quote that was like the bombshell was, you know, I just thought it was going to go away. You know what it's like? It's like you have a check engine light on and you just turn your car off and hope it doesn't turn back on when you turn the car on. You know, like it's like at a certain point that check engine light might not be a big deal, but you keep driving around. hoping it goes away, your engine's going to explode. You know, like, I mean, like, and that's just kind of what happens. So, you know, I think that maybe now, Andy would be a good time if Oklahoma State fans are sad.

You know, here's the thing, too, like Oklahoma State fans are probably really sad today. I think that, like, when you know it's time, it's probably easier to accept, but you also lost whenever you have a coach that's been there as long as you have, or he was, there is a certain connection that those fans share with that person. Like Oklahoma State and Mike Gundy became synonymous with one another. You could not picture Oklahoma State, even as they had some good players like Ali Gordon and Mason Rudolph and the list goes on. Like you still viewed their program through the prism of the mullet.

And like that's going to change. But the hope for them now is that you go in and you get somebody who's energized and invigorated by the challenge of NIL, somebody who wants to recruit their ass off, who wants to go out and weaponize whatever money they do have. And I know that, you know, Oklahoma State might not be the pillar of wealth, but like they're not broke. Like you can make it work there. So, you know, Pete.

Let's talk about, let's talk about who might be in line to get this job. But before that, Mike Gundy's next job, our friend Josh Pate goes, badly want him on TV. Second that. Let's let's get him on TV. H, put him on game day next to Nick Saven. Let them talk. Yeah.

But Pete Nacos from On 3, our colleague, has a hotboard out, outlining potential next Oklahoma State coaches. There's some names that they're obvious that pop up, Zach Robinson, former Oklahoma State quarterback, who's now the Atlanta Falcons offensive corner, don't watch yesterday's game. That just forget what happened. What's that? point in that game they didn't and they were playing the panthers so yeah what happened there uh i don't know but analysis of how the atlanta falcons were unable to score on one of the worst teams in the NFL no i mean like this makes sense though um there's one name other potential

ones go ahead oh there's one name that's not on the list that i saw um that i think is interesting and has been circulating around the chat and that's ben arbuckle uh oh he's on the list go He's on the list, the Oklahoma offensive coordinator, who's only 29 years old right now, by the way. Which, by the way, is in vogue right now. Young, yeah. Well, Mike Gundy was very young when he got hired because he was in year two of being a head coach. I'm sorry, year three, season three of being a head coach when he was a man and he was 40. So that's right. So he was in his 30s when he got the job. But Ben Arbuckle is an interesting one. Another young guy. a little bit older than Ben Arbuckle, but Will Stein, that we're an offensive coordinator, I think is one who is going to be a very good head coach when he becomes a head coach.

He's going to be really selective about which job he takes, but I've heard he might be interested in this one. Colin Klein, the Texas A&M offensive coordinator, I know you're probably like, okay, what is he done? First of all, he was really good as K. State's offensive coordinator. Remember Colin Klein, great Kansas State quarterback. I think the thought among K. State fans is that when Chris Klyman wants to hang it up, Colin Klein would come in and replace him.

But Colin Klein, if A&M's offense is as good as we think it might be this year, Ari is going to be a very sought-after approach. Yeah. So let me ask you, in terms of what you would want if you were an Oklahoma state decision-maker, like are you emphasizing somebody who's got good offensive numbers, good scheme? Are you going after somebody who has been at a place that has recruited at a high level. Does the NFL look good to you because of the roster, you know, salary cap? So Todd Munkin's the name that Pete put on this. And Todd Munkin, obviously, has had time

at Oklahoma State, has been a college head coach. He's the Ravens Offensive Coordinator now. He was Southern Misses head coach, so he's got experience doing that. He also was the offensive coordinator, Georgia when they got really, really good. And I think, you could argue that Todd Munkin was kind of the final piece that had to be put in place for Georgia to start winning national titles. So I think that's an interesting one. I like this one that Pete put on here. And I don't think this is a guy that a lot of people know.

I know who you brought up Ben Arbuckle. Tyson Helton, the Western Kentucky head coach, who has repeatedly had to replace. He got Zach Kittley who brought Bailey Zappy with him. And then Zach Kittley becomes the Texas Tech OC. and now he's the FAU head coach. Kittley brings Ben Arbuckle. He becomes the Western Kentucky offensive coordinator. Then he leaves to become Washington State's offensive coordinator.

And Helton has just kept on rolling despite having to replace all this stuff. At the level Oklahoma State is, where if you want a Big 12 team that is maybe not the wealthiest program in the Big 12, but you want to be able to compete in the Big 12 and also be able to win if they play SEC teams or Big 10 teams, you need someone who can repeatedly replace good talent on the coaching staff and who can find good quarterbacks in the portal. Let me throw another one at you, Andy, that I think is interesting.

Will Stein, the offensive coordinator at Oregon. I find this to be quite interesting because the beginning of the at least immediate end for Oklahoma State was complaining about how Oregon amasses, you know, talent through spending a lot of money. But Will Stein and, you know, succeeded pretty great. lately on the field with Bo Nix is doing a very good job with Dante Moore. He spent some time coaching at Texas. He was at UTSA with under Jeff Trailer with Frank Harris as the QB. Do you want to go for the person who is exposed to a way of doing things that was foreign to your previous coach?

Now, you know, doing those things at Oregon might not translate apples to apples when you get the still water, but a peak understanding of what it takes to be involved in that world, I think is something that Oklahoma State might need. So he's an accomplished on the field coach because Oregon's offense is awesome to watch. And at the same time, too, might be the type of person you need to usher your program into the newest century of roster and talent accumulation. Yeah, there's a really good list that Pete Nacos has put together. And like I said, they're more coach.

than you think that are going on at this job. G.J. Kenney at Texas State, I think I mentioned him earlier, but he's one that, you know, Texas State did relatively nothing, and all of a sudden he's taking into the bowl games, winning bowl games. I think he's one that will succeed at a higher level. But this is going to be one that I, maybe there'll be names that we haven't thought of,

maybe there'd be some bigger names that won in on this thing because, yeah, a few more. He showed you you can win there. A few more. Jeff Traylor himself has done quite well. And then Jim Knowles. Did you say Jim Nolz? I didn't. But he's, yeah, he's on the top of Pete's list. Jim Noles was a great defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State. He went to Ohio State. Now he's at Penn State. That one, I'm not sure if he was viewed as being on the head coach track, but you have to talk to him if he's interested.

I mean, the reason why he went to Ohio State is because he assembled one of the best defenses in the country at Oklahoma State the previous year. So obviously somebody who is intimately familiar with how things work there. And I get like the age is much different than Ben Arbuckle. I don't know what direction you want to go in. But like he's somebody that certainly needs to be mentioned as we're talking about this. Yeah. Paxton in the chat says John Somerall at Tulane. I think John Somerall is probably holding out for an SEC job. And he's probably going to get one in the next.

year or two. So, yeah. This is going to be a fascinating coaching search, the end of an absolutely legendary tenure. I hate that it ended this way. I hate that it got to this point. But Mike Gundy was a hell of a coach for Oklahoma State, the best one they ever had. And now they're looking for a new one. We'll talk to you again soon.