What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
This week, we have to talk about Mike Gundy. But there’s other stuff too.
Mike Gundy’s Time Finally Came
It’s rare that any coach gets to leave on their terms and gets to leave on top. Add former — still strange to write — former Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy to the list.
Gundy’s firing on Tuesday was surprising in one singular way — the how. After the team’s awful performance at home against Tulsa, followed by last season’s winless Big 12 slate, that would have left athletic director Chad Weiberg the opening to do the deed over the weekend. Instead, Gundy did his usual early-week press conference and was then fired.
Theories? I have a couple. Gundy was expected to say something particular, and he didn’t. Weiberg didn’t have the booster money for the $15 million buyout until after the press conference. Weiberg finally buckled to internal pressure and just did it. Who knows. But it’s done.
After some distance, Gundy should be remembered fondly. The former OSU quarterback and assistant coach left as the program’s winningest coach of all time. He was 170-90. For perspective, his mentor, Pat Jones, was the program’s all-time winningest coach before Gundy with 62 wins. That’s insane. That’s basically what Matt Campbell is doing at Iowa State right now. OSU went to 18 straight bowl games under Gundy and won the 2011 Big 12 Conference championship. It was the 11th conference title in program history and the first since a 1976 Big 8 co-championship.
He took the Cowboys to the Big 12 title game in 2021 and 2023. In the new world Big 12, without Oklahoma and Texas, I thought it was only a matter of time before the Cowboys won another title. So, what happened?
The NIL and transfer portal era got him. He failed to adjust to something that was foreign to every coach just five years ago, but many of his colleagues have adjusted. He didn’t. I don’t think he liked the idea that he had to re-recruit players every year. I don’t think he liked the portable talent. I don’t think he wanted to have to constantly keep players happy with things outside of football. At Big 12 media days in July, he said there were eight positions where he had “no idea” who the starter would be. Back in the day, the two-deep would be set.
I also think NIL was an issue. When I hear about schools doing NIL well in the Big 12 it’s BYU, Iowa State and Texas Tech for starters. I don’t hear much about Oklahoma State. I’m not sure what’s happening there. If T. Boone Pickens were alive everyone knows he’d take care of it. But with his passing, whose gonna fill those shoes (in the words of the legendary George Jones)?
There was certainly Gundy fatigue in the OSU fan base. He was omnipresent at that program for more than a decade, and one could argue that might have gotten him in the end. The Cowboys probably needed a fresh start. You can only get that without Gundy. Perhaps the NIL purse strings loosen with him gone?
Gundy deserves his flowers in Stillwater. But he also deserves the blame, too. The root of his firing was his inability to adjust to the new world of college football.
Playoffs? PLAYOFFS
Could y’all just pick a format already? We have a new working group for the College Football Playoff and its expansion, as Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported earlier this week.
Why is it so hard to do this fairly? The conference champion should get an automatic bid. Everyone else gets in as an at-large. Aside from generating more revenue, why does a conference need more than one automatic bid? Everyone dragged their feet about this for decades because they didn’t want to cheapen the regular season. These formats with more than one auto bid for any conference would absolutely cheapen the regular season.
If there is no expansion decision by December, then we stay at 12 in 2026. And you know what? I’m totally OK with that. I’m fine with 12 teams. To mean, that’s more than enough for a great playoff with high quality teams. Plus there’s enough give to where if you lose a game your season isn’t over.
An FCS Power Play?
And everyone thought FBS would be the first to tap into private equity. Not so fast, my friend (in the immortal words of Lee Corso).
FCS is hearing out Sequence Equity about a private equity deal to make the FCS playoffs more lucrative, according to Front Office Sports’ Amanda Christovich.
The interesting part is that as part of the deal the FCS playoffs would become privatized to try and make more money. That means the NCAA would no longer run the playoff. The NCAA would have to approve it.
There are three tiers of influence when it comes to the NCAA. First, the entity has nothing to do with selling TV rights or running for FBS football and the CFP. Second, the NCAA sells the rights to the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament as a standalone and runs the tournament. Third, all other NCAA championships, including women’s basketball, are bundled together for TV rights and the NCAA runs those tournaments. So, FCS football playoffs don’t stand on their own.
There’s an audience there. The championship game has done solid ratings when it’s given a Saturday window and a showcase on ABC. But the playoffs, and the schools that participate, generally lose money. PE would mitigate that — hopefully.
It’s just hilarious to me that FCS may go this route first.
Counting to Nine
The SEC and the ACC can count to nine, as in nine league games for football starting in 2026. The Big 12 has been doing nine league games since it went to 10 teams after it lost members back in 2011. Plus, the SEC and the ACC are requiring members to play one power conference program in non-conference starting next year. The Big 12 has had that requirement for two years.
So, who’s the holdout?
Five Big Ten teams don’t have a power conference team on their non-conference schedule — Indiana, Nebraska, Penn State, Rutgers and Washington. The Big Ten is already at nine league games and has been since 2016. It was the first conference in FBS with more than 10 members to do so.
I like the SEC’s and ACC’s decisions. It gets everyone on the same footing scheduling-wise and should allow the CFP committee a bit more ease in comparing apples to apples.
