College Football HC With $15M Buyout on Hot Seat for Firing

The Cowboys opened the season with a rebuilt roster and what looked like a rejuvenated Mike Gundy. They eased past UT Martin 27–7 in the opener against an overmatched FCS opponent, but the first real test came a week later in Eugene. The result? A historic disaster. Oregon thumped Oklahoma State 69–3, the most points the Cowboys had allowed since 1996 and their widest margin of defeat since 1907, the year Oklahoma officially became a state.

That loss landed squarely on a head coach already under scrutiny after a 3–9 finish in 2024. Oklahoma State tore up the rolling five-year deal Mike Gundy earned after his 12-win, top-10 season in 2021 and replaced it with a contract that now ends in 2028. They cut his salary by $1 million to $6.75 million, and reshaped the buyout to $15 million if he’s fired without cause after the 2025 or 2026 seasons (dropping to $10 million after 2027). In the offseason, Gundy tried to reset the program, parting ways with longtime assistants and overhauling his staff, but Saturday’s performance made it clear how steep the climb has become in Stillwater.

On September 16, the conversation around the head coach heated up even more when Rece Davis, Pete Thamel, and Dan Wetzel discussed him on the College GameDay podcast. Thamel didn’t mince words: “The next person in the crosshairs is Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State… And this is a place that has been so defined by Mike Gundy (that) it’s going to be really difficult to insert an entirely new identity.” But he argued that Oklahoma State has fallen behind the curve in today’s college football landscape. 

“They were late to NIL. They got behind. Now look, they played the Big 12 title game two season ago… But from that point, it’s been a spiral, and it looks as if it’s irrecoverable at this point.” For nearly two decades, Mike Gundy has been Oklahoma State football. A Stillwater native and former Cowboys quarterback, he’s spent 35 of his 58 years with the program and is its winningest coach by more than 100 games. His famous “I’m a man! I’m 40!” rant, his willingness to spar with boosters like the late T. Boone Pickens, and his run of 18 consecutive bowl appearances gave him a reputation as both a fighter and a program-builder who raised the ceiling of a once-middling Big 12 school. But that legacy has increasingly started to look like a liability. 

Thamel noted, “Exiting legends is hard. It’s really hard to do that in September, October….Anyone predicting how Mike Gundy’s going to handle all this has no idea. He is the most relentlessly unpredictable character our sport has seen in the last two decades.” To this, Rece Davis replied, “The man hunts rattlesnakes Pete… He’s not going to be afraid to step through all of this at the same time.” Yet, you can’t just bet on “Mike Gundy being Mike Gundy” to turn things around anymore. 

The collapse of 2024 also exposed how his blunt style, once embraced as refreshing, could now damage the brand he built. During a November home loss to Arizona State, Gundy said of disgruntled fans, “In most cases, the people that are negative and voicing their opinion are the same ones that can’t pay their own bills…” The backlash was swift; Gundy and then-university president Dr. Kayse Shrum both issued apologies, and Oklahoma State’s NIL collective called it “the most (counterproductive) thing that could have ever been said at a press conference.” The damage done by comments before the Week 2 game was similar. 

Gundy had pointed out before the game the sizeable roster budget at Oregon and the spending gap between the Ducks and his own team. Afterward, Oregon quarterback Dante Moore, who completed 16 of 21 passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns, said he used those comments as motivation to deliver the lopsided defeat. Gundy had also said his new starter would be “fine” in opposing stadiums and that playing on the road would not affect him “a whole lot.” But in reality, Flores struggled badly, finishing just 7-for-19 for 67 yards with two interceptions.

Oklahoma State now heads into a softer matchup with Tulsa on September 19 before a far more revealing Big 12 trip to Baylor on September 27. Beating Tulsa might calm things for a week, but everyone knows the real test is in Waco.  Gundy might be right about the Cowboys needing more resources to keep up, but that argument only goes so far when fans are already frustrated with his results and his comments.  

At this point, the only path to regaining trust is on the field— and unless those wins start coming soon, it’s hard to picture Gundy finishing the season with his footing secure in Stillwater.