Oklahoma State’s Week 4 home loss to Tulsa was an all-time low for the program under coach Mike Gundy, and speculation about his future has only grown in the days since. Gundy’s led Oklahoma State for two decades but has lost 11 of his last 12 games since finishing 10-4 to end the 2023 campaign. The Cowboys are off to a 1-2 start in the 2025 season, with a brutal 69-3 loss at Oregon in Week 2 before dropping last Friday’s home game to the Golden Hurricanes as a double-digit favorite.
“Fire Gundy” chants resonated throughout the game from a near-capacity crowd in Stillwater — this, after the 66-point loss at Oregon. Earlier this year, Gundy and Oklahoma State agreed to a restructured contract that included a $1 million pay cut and a decreased buyout that opened the door for a change sooner than later if the Cowboys didn’t turn things around quickly.
“I haven’t had a player come to me and ask me any of that, so I don’t address things … I’m under contract here for, I think, about 3.5 years,” Gundy said at a Monday press conference. “When I was hired here to take this job, ever since that day I’ve put my heart and soul into this, and I’ll continue to do that until, at some point, if I say I don’t want to do it, or if somebody else says we don’t want you to do it.”
Gundy’s contract runs through 2028 and pays him $6.75 million in 2025 with a $125,000 raise annually. Unlike most coaching contracts that have a percentage buyout, Gundy’s new deal has a flat rate buyout structure. If he’s fired in the first three years of the deal, Oklahoma State will pay him $15 million. If he’s fired in the fourth year of the deal, his buyout is $10 million.
Mike Gundy buyout: What it would cost Oklahoma State to move on from coach as Cowboys struggle
Robby Kalland
“I don’t mind addressing this question. I addressed it after the [Tulsa] game, and this will kind of be the last time I address it, but it’s a fair question,” Gundy said, “and the players have never come to me and asked me that, and I think that’s maybe from what I’ve instilled in them since Day 1. We do have a lot of new players, but I’ve always talked to them about, ‘you signed up to be a college football player and I signed up to be a college football coach.’ These are the things that come along with that, whether we like it or not, that’s just the way it is.”
Gundy said his daily “demeanor” will never change as the leader of the program, though he does punch the time clock earlier on mornings after losses.
“I wish we could’ve played better for them, I wish we would’ve coached better for them,” Gundy said Monday, pointing to his organization and team-based mentality rather than singling out one position group or staffer.
Gundy filibustered some of the roster issues with this year’s team, specifically dealing his quarterback situation and “four or five things on defense that are glaring” that need to be cleaned up before answered questions relating to Baylor in this week’s Big 12 opener for the Cowboys.
Read the full article here
