Is Mike Holder About To Make a Big-Time Hire?

There is a case to be made that Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder is about to make a splashy hire at Oklahoma State. I don’t know how you define splashy, but I’m thinking Archie Miller (Dayton) or Chris Holtmann (Butler) or (at the tip-top) Buzz Williams (Virginia Tech). That is my definition of splashy.

If you think Gregg Marshall or Bill Self are real candidates then we have different expectations of Mike Holder and Oklahoma State hoops.

Anyway, any of those top three would likely command $3 million plus in salary if they would even consider it at all. There is a realistic future landscape where Oklahoma State is a financially better option than the schools they are currently at but not really superior in any other way.

College hoops has changed a lot in recent years. Butler and Wichita State are national powerhouses. You don’t have to be in a Power 5 conference to get guys and win. It’s different than it used to be.

Anyway, here is how the case that Holder is about to flip the script and give somebody more than Underwood was asking for (which, how hilarious would that be?) Here are four reasons.

1. More money available

The first is simple. You’re completely out from under the Travis Ford contract (OSU had to pay him a lump sum of almost $4 million last year). Also, Illinois just paid you $3 million to take Underwood. So you’re flush financially and just had a strong attendance year with GIA increasing its butts in seats rate by 44 percent.

Whether Holder wants to spend that money remains to be seen, but it’s hard to argue that you’re less financially strapped than you were a year ago.

2. You can’t go low-major again

I wrote about this yesterday, but are you really going to go hire [guy from small school] and ask fans to buy what he’s selling a year after Brad went Frank Underwood and pulled the rug out from under the feet of 13,611 folks in orange?

From a marketing perspective (and thus a financial perspective) that feels like a risk. Maybe winning cures everything (it does) but I do think Holder has thought a lot about how this next hire will be perceived by season ticket-paying fans.

3. Underwood might be a bad guy

All along we have thought that Holder is simply a tight-ass who doesn’t take care of his guys. Maybe that’s true. But maybe it’s not. Maybe Holder knew things about Underwood that the rest of us didn’t know, and maybe Holder is not philosophically opposed to paying $3 million a year to the right coach.

4. Have to keep momentum going

Of course you don’t have to keep the momentum going, but I don’t want to think about OSU falling back to 9th or 10th in the Big 12 next year. What does that mean for the future? Last year, you had time to play with. Fans will understand it takes a while to get a program back after the Ford experiment.

This time, though? Again, people don’t care how you lost Underwood, only that you lost him. Success seems like a blip now instead of a trajectory. Holder has to consider the fact that he needs to maintain the momentum Underwood built in Year 1 at the risk of setting the program back another handful of years.

Again, these factors added up don’t mean anything. For all I know Holder is hiring the Middle Tennessee State coach as we speak. And for all I know he’ll do great. What I’m saying here is that there is a scenario in which Holder could make a big hire nobody really saw coming. The foundation is there and the timing is right. It all comes down to whether he’s willing to spend the money.