‘I Can Fix It’: Gundy Discusses College Football’s Modern Problems and How to Fix Them

STILLWATER — Mike Gundy said by the time he’s done coaching, he hopes college football is in a better place, but if it isn’t, he said he’s willing to help get it there.

Oklahoma State held its in-house media day on Saturday in Gallagher-Iba Arena. Entering his 21st year as the Cowboys’ coach, Gundy was asked what he wants to do after coaching by the Tulsa World‘s Bill Haisten and whether that future had anything to do with college football.

“Hopefully before I decide or somebody decides that I’m not doing this, hopefully college football will be in a better place,” Gundy said. “That’s what I would hope for. If not, I think it needs to be put in a better place. Whatever I could do to help, I’d be willing to help. I have a good plan for it. I don’t think anybody will listen, but I can fix it.

“But regardless, I’m going to guess that I’ll probably get into television.”

There’s a lot to unpack there.

First of all, Gundy would be great on TV. Gundy was part of a roundtable telecast for a national championship game a handful of years back, where he looked as comfortable as he could be.

But the more pertinent part of that answer in the mean time is that Gundy thinks he can fix college football.

The transfer portal and NIL have had positives associated with them, but they’ve also brought the sport plenty of hurdles to get over. It’s hard for fans to get overly invested in their respective teams because players are changing so much that it’s hard to build that connection. In turn, if those people stop watching as much, the whole ecosystem hurts for it.

Cash is at the center of it all, not just with the players, but also with the universities. It’s been an open-market arms race the past few years with schools hopping conferences for bigger payouts that way they could in turn help fund their football rosters.

Here’s how Gundy said he’d go about fixing the sport.

“You need a commissioner,” Gundy said. “You’ve gotta get one person in charge, and then they gotta get the four Power (Conference) people in one room. Then they all gotta start talking about equality and how can we revenue share across the country. We can follow the NFL pattern. If you’re not gonna make them employees and collective bargaining, I get it, but then how are we gonna fix it? That’s just the way I see it.

“You can’t have a group that’s getting (a lot of) money and a group that’s getting (a lot less) money then expect people to want to watch television when one of those teams plays one of these teams. I think eventually if they don’t fix it, it’s gonna be difficult for people to actually really want to watch college football. …

“There’s a solution to it, but there’s gotta be a give and take. Until one person’s in charge, there won’t be a lot of give and take.”

As lawsuits have poured in regarding NIL payments, it has made the mountain to fix college sports feel harder to climb. Gundy pointed to the newly founded College Sports Commission already facing difficulties as an example of that.

There are a ton of problems that need to be tackled, but for now, the world isn’t far away from some actual tackling.

“But the good news is this — like I told the coaches and players — that’s over with (for now); we get football now,” Gundy said. “We get to coach football and play football. That’s the good stuff.”