The Josh Innes Show - Goodbye Mike Gundy

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Mike Gundy has been fired and it feels like the official end of an era in college football. I was talking with Meltser last night and I told him of my longing for good ol' days of college football. I miss 2007. I miss the coaches. I miss the drama. I miss the game.... It all feels so different now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. dot c a slash ymx hello friends welcome in it's all up in this what's happening good morning 427 and it's

early it's early but hey i napped yesterday and then i went to sleep relatively early at least for me i went to sleep at like 11 o'clock so i'm i'm goddamn spry today a nap and going to sleep at 11 o'clock at night are you kidding me what am i an old man but uh i'm glad you guys are listening and I'm glad you guys have been enjoying the podcast. Could you tell your friends about it? Tell one new friend about it. And then prove to me that you told a friend about it. Like take a screenshot of a text message or something.

And then send it to me and let me know that you've told a friend to listen to the podcast. If we take everybody that listens to this podcast and they had one friend, we double the listenership of the podcast. And then we make a bigger podcast and we make more money and life is good. And I don't just view you guys as a dollar sign, by the way. I love you very much. I think you're wonderful. and I know many of you personally, so thank you.

But help us grow this thing. Make it worth my while to get up at 3.45. Because, you know, I very well could get my ass up at 5 o'clock, and it would be I could sleep for an extra hour and a half, basically. But I don't, because I do this for you and for the small sum of money I get to do it. But I don't make enough money at my day job to not do it. Look, I work hard for the money.

What can I tell you? All right, let's play some commercials, and let's get in. to it. All right. First thing out of the shoot is Mike Gundy got fired at Oklahoma State and he had been there since what, 2006. So damn near 20 years of Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State. So I guess he got the job there after Les Miles left, right? So Les left, Les went to LSU. So Sabin left before the 2005 college football season, right? So the, you know, the,

last year of Nick Saban at LSU was 2004. It ended in the Capital One Bowl, which LSU lost to Iowa on a Hail Mary at the end of the game. Then the plane is on the tarmac in Baton Rouge, and is Nick Saban going to go, or is he going to stay? And he ends up going to Miami. And 2005, Les comes in. And that starts that run of like less suckling off of the teat of what Sabin had built there with all the talent and everything. I think LSU won 11 games. in 2005. Was that the year they played in the Sugar Bowl against, they either played Notre Dame that year or Miami. I forgot who they played in a bowl game that year. Was that the year? No, I think that was the year they played Miami in a bowl game. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

So Mike Gundy, though, followed Les Miles at Oklahoma State, famous for the I'm a man, I'm 40 rant, which has gotten a lot of legs. But, you know, it's not really a pro Mike Gundy thing because I don't really care about Mike Gundy one way or the other. You know, like, oh, he's kind of known for having the mullet, and, you know, he's known for, they won a lot of games in Oklahoma. I mean, at Oklahoma State. Like, they won a lot of games there, and they had a good number of 10 win seasons. It's not like Oklahoma State was some juggernaut when he got there.

Oklahoma State was one of those kind of programs where, like, if they won 10 games, it was very rare. And every now and then they would have a star player that would pop up, like there'd be a Barry Sanders, or there'd be a less Miles who did relatively well there. and I think he beat Oklahoma a time or two when he was the coach at Oklahoma State and the letter rip and all that less mile shit. But big picture, Oklahoma State was never truly a viable player. And then Mike Gundy gets there and they become a viable player.

And I think they were a team that was kind of in the mix in that wild 2007 season where seemingly every team was number one or number two in the country at some point. And like every Thursday night there'd be some big upset of some team. that probably shouldn't have been number two, like South Florida, like teams like that. Like 2007 was a wild year of college football, and that's the year that culminated in two-loss LSU, winning the national championship over Ohio State.

A two-loss LSU in the era of the, you know, two teams get in, like the BCS, like the computer puts two teams in. And a two-loss LSU team, who was dead and buried after losing to Arkansas on the day after Thanksgiving, was let back in because the last day of the day of, the year had all these teams that just needed to win and in a lot of cases beat shitty teams to get in and they blew it like West Virginia had a chance to go to the national championship but they blew it to pit like it was that kind of year and LSU kind of backdoored in they

got into the SEC championship game they won that game against Tennessee and got into the national championship I went to both of those games by the way the SEC championship the only time I've ever been was that one and I went to the national championship game and I think that's the only year I've ever been to the national championship game was in 07 in the dome. But I bring this up because I was texting Meltzer about this. Like you see Mike Gundy go and like you look at Mike Gundy and go, you know what? We're kind of at a point where that era is kind of officially over. It kind of closes the door on that era of college football, which was my favorite era of college football, that 2005.

to like 2012, 2013. You know, the coaches were more characters than they are now. Like, the SEC had characters, and the SEC in that era had coaches that made sense in the SEC. Like Brian Kelly, hope he wins a national championship at LSU. Brian Kelly putting on his fake Southern accent, I do say, is not SEC football. You know, Kirby Smart is SEC football. Brian Kelly is not.

Lane Kiffin's a little bit of SEC football. but, you know, Kaelin DeBoer is not. Like, it just, it feels different. It's a different world. It closes the door on what, like, officially slams the door on what was my favorite era of college football. When I really kind of first truly dug deep and got into it, I was on the radio in Baton Rouge doing an hour show. I was doing LSU pre and post game shows. And, um, goddamn, you look at the guys who were coaches in that era, right?

Think about this, 2007 coaches and compare them to the guys that are there now. Like they're just, who are the characters? Who are the guys that you watch in college football now and go, that guy's a character? That guy's a character and he fits where he coaches and it just makes sense. Everybody's too buttoned down. It's too much of a, I mean, look, it's always been a business. But now it's NILs and now it's getting contracts for players and it's the portal and it's all this shit. This was a simpler time.

2007 was a simpler time. Mike Gundy, the coach at Oklahoma State, was a simpler time. Look at the people who were coaches. You had Mark Mangino was at Kansas. My man was morbidly obese. Just a fat fucking lard of a man. Mark Mangino, but Kansas, that was 2007 the year that they got into the Orange Bowl, but didn't deserve to be in the Orange Bowl.

Like Missouri should have been in the Orange Bowl over them, but Kansas got the bid. You had less miles at LSU. You had Gary Pinkle at Missouri, who was the winningness coach Missouri's ever had. Now compare that to him. Eli Drinkwitz. Look at Eli Drinkwitz and tell me, yeah, Eli Drinkwitz feels like an SEC football coach. Eli Drinkwitz feels like somebody who's your fucking accountant, you know?

Like Eli Drinkwitz reminds me of like one of the hangar-on buddies in the Wolf of Wall Street, one of the guys that gets to fuck like the low stock hooker. because he doesn't make as much money as Leonardo DiCaprio. When I look at him and I see him in his stupid visor, that's what I think of when I see Eli Drinkwitz. But Gary Pinkle, to me, that is college football. Pete Carroll was still at USC. Before Pete Carroll went on to win Super Bowl,

well, singular Super Bowl should have been two at Seattle. He was still the coach at USC at the time. Mark Richt was in Georgia and Jim Tressel was at Ohio State. And Frank Beamer was the coach. at Virginia Tech. Whoever the hell the coach is there that just got fired? He won Frank Beamer. Bob Stoops was at Oklahoma and Rich Rod was at West Virginia

and Mack Brown was at Texas. Dennis Freakin' Erickson was in Arizona State. Brian Kelly in 2007 was the coach at Cincinnati. Philip Fulmer was the coach at Tennessee. George O'Leary, after he had been disciplined, missed at Alabama. Was George O'Leary he had some sort of sex No, George O'Leary lied on his resume.

So George O'Leary was a guy that lied on his resume. He was going to get the job at Alabama. They found that he lied about something on his resume. He ends up going to UCF. Mike Bellotti in Oregon. Lloyd Carr was still the coach at Michigan. Tommy

Bowden. This is before Dabo. Now Dabo is kind of one of the elder statesmen of the college game. Now he got that gig in what, 2008, Is that when Dabo got the job? He was an interim coach in the middle of the year. Maybe it was this year. But you had, I think it was the next year.

I think next year, Dabo was the interim coach and has since been the coach at Clemson. Mike Leach, the pirate, was at Texas Tech. You had Pat Hill at Fresno State when they were one of the best little mid-major programs out there. Tommy Tuberville was at Auburn. Art Bryles was at Houston. Sly Kroom. You want to talk about an era. Sly Kroom was at Mississippi State.

They won eight games that year. Sylvester Kroom was the first black head coach of the SEC. I interviewed him on the radio. I had a bunch of radio interviews in this era. You had Rich Brooks, who had Kentucky winning eight games. That Kentucky team that year upset LSU in triple overtime. Houston nut was the coach at Arkansas. They upset LSU in triple overtime.

that year. Butch Jones was at Central Michigan. Brady Hoke, this before Brady Hoke got the Michigan job. Kirk Farrants was still at Iowa because Kirk Farrants was always at Iowa. He will never not be in Iowa. But to me, that felt like college football, man. Mike Gundy was at Oklahoma State. Nick Samed had just gotten back to Alabama and they went seven and six and they had lost to ULM. That was college football to me, man. And look, you could say, oh, you're waxing poetic, you know, you sound like old man telling stories, remember when stories, and maybe I am.

But, man, 2007, Mike Gundy and is the head coach at Oklahoma State, and you got all these characters and people that make sense in the part of the country they are. The conferences made sense with where they were. there was no Missouri in the SEC, there was no Texas in the SEC, there was no Oklahoma in the SEC. It was the teams that belonged in the SEC, and the Big 12 was a reputable league that had, you know, you had the pirate at Texas Tech. And that was the year, I think 2007 was the year, and I think it was on a Thursday, was the, and this might have been a Saturday. It was the year that Texas Tech and Michael Crabtree upset Texas. Like this was college football.

This is before we became jaded. This is before, you know, there were a thousand podcasts. This was before NIL. This is back when we still kind of operated under the assumption that college athletics was college athletics and student athletes were student athletes. Like 2007 was a different simpler time. What, like, what was it the movie theater in 2007? I feel like this is like, you know, remember when shit I'm doing right now. And I'm fully aware that I'm doing remember when shit right now.

But like, it is hard for me to believe that it was damn near 20 years ago. As we talk about Mike Gundy getting fired, it was damn near, it was damn near 20 years ago. What was the top box office in 2007? This is back when I used to go to the movie every weekend. Knocked up was a huge at the box office. Super bad, which I saw five times in the theater, was killing it at the box office. Norbit. Just the remake of Halloween, I think Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween.

Blades of Glory. Ocean's 13. Man, there's a different time, man. And you can tell me I'm wrong and that's fine. I still watch college football. I'll be watching LSU take on Ole Miss this week. weekend. I'll be part of it. Who was the coach at Ole Miss in that era? Coach O. Coach O was the head coach at Ole Miss in 2007. That's the world we lived in then. Fred Claus was at the

theaters. I went to the movies twice a weekend in this era. I used to go count the number of movies I would see in a year. I would probably go to the movies in that era. I think I would see 60, 70 movies a year in that era, if not more. Now I barely ever go to the movies. All that to be said. It was a different time, man. And I know that we always look

back on an era that we were younger and we just look at it fondly, which I get. But this was the era of Fergie. Not black-eyed peas. Fergie. We're like every other song on the radio was Ferggy. It was Fergolicious.

It was glamorous. It was big girls don't cry. It was Avril and girlfriend and it was daughtry. And it was Beyonce. Beyonce was still great. It was Kanye before he was a Nazi and crazy. Boy, and you think about Mike Gundy. We pour one out for our departed homie, Mike Gundy.

What a time. What an era. What a world it was. Anyway, I miss it. You can say, hey, stop waxing poetic about a bygone era. I won't. I will not. That was the best era.

That was an amazing era. That was young Josh just getting full-time radio job, Josh, making $18,000 a year, having a girlfriend for the first time, getting laid for the first time in that era. Those were the years, man. That was legendary time for me. That was making road trips to, you know. Auburn for football games. That was interviewing all these football coaches that had no business being

on the radio in Baton Rouge, like Mark Ricked and Gary Pinkle and Sylvester Kroom and Gene Stallings. It was just a different world, man. And Mike Gundy being whacked is kind of the end of that era. Who's left?