The Top 5 Quotes from Mike Gundy’s Tuesday News Conference

STILLWATER — The big news to come from Mike Gundy’s Tuesday news conference was that he announced the Cowboys will play a spring game rather than an open spring practice.

Oklahoma State’s spring game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium. Gundy met with reporters after Tuesday’s practice. Here are five other things that stood out.

1. Quarterbacks “Doing Good”

OSU fans will have an opportunity to take a peek at the four-man quarterback battle at the spring game this weekend.

As for OSU’s coach, he continues to sound impressed with each of Garret Rangel, Zane Flores, Maealiuaki Smith and Hauss Hejny.

“They’re doing good,” Gundy said. “I mean, I watched them really close today. It’s not that nobody’s stepping up. It’s just that all of them are playing pretty good.”

2. The Boys From Oklahoma

Stillwater was a busy place this weekend with four straight nights of red dirt music.

The Boys From Oklahoma concerts, most notably featuring Cross Canadian Ragweed and Turnpike Troubadours, happened Thursday through Sunday in Boone Pickens Stadium. The shows themselves were awesome for Oklahoma State, and that doesn’t even account for the fact that they helped benefit OSU’s NIL efforts.

“The concerts were tremendous for the State of Oklahoma, for Stillwater, and for Oklahoma State University,” Gundy said. “I don’t have any idea what the total revenue was. I know (OSU senior associate AD) Kyle Waters did an unbelievable job of running it. We are very luck that we have him. The first night, we had five arrests, the second night we had seven and on the third night — a Saturday night — they had four. I didn’t get the news on Sunday. You talk about 60,000 people being here a night, 250,000 overall and that type of environment and we had hardly any issues at all.

“It was a great accomplishment, and I think it is something we should do every year, regardless of NIL. I think it is good for the community, and I bet the vendors in Stillwater were excited about it. There were people from all over the country here. I was walking out of practice on Saturday to my car. They were tailgating out here, and there was a Nebraska flag. Nebraska people came down here, and they were excited about the concert. I don’t know we can say it was anything other than a huge success.”

3. On the Iamaleava-Tennessee Situation

Gundy was asked myriad questions about the biggest story in college football from the past week: Nico Iamaleava’s unceremonious exit from Tennessee.

If you haven’t heard, Iamaleava and the Volunteers parted ways after an attempted renegotiation of Iamaleava’s NIL compensation for the upcoming season fell through. Iamaleava led the Vols to a 10-3 2024 season, throwing for 2,616 yards and 19 touchdowns as a sophomore. Now he is a free agent, and the Vols are in search of their next quarterback.

“We’re trying to build an NFL system in an amateur model,” Gundy said. “We don’t have rules. We don’t have legislation. We don’t have leadership in one position that controls all of this. You’re going to continue to see more of this. There are two people to look at it in this situation. The young man, you can’t blame him for what he is doing, and you can’t blame Tennessee for what they are doing. The leadership in how we got to this position is who to blame. The two parties are doing what they think is best for them. Until we get the amateurism out of what we are trying to accomplish, we’re just all kind of rolling with the punches.”

4. Quarterback Gundy in the NIL Era?

That discussion led to a question as to what OSU quarterback Mike Gundy would have done with NIL money back in the late 1980s.

“If had that much money I would have never made it,” Gundy said. “I would have been like the guy that played at A&M, Johnny Manziel. I would have blown all my money and no telling what would have happened. I’m glad I didn’t have that much money.”

5. On the Offensive Line

The Cowboys’ offensive line is sure to have five guys who have never started a game at Oklahoma State on it next season.

The room graduated a ton — Jake Springfield, Cole Birmingham, Dalton Cooper, Preston Wilson and Taylor Miterko. Isaia Glass, who also started games for the Pokes last season, hit the portal. So, the Cowboys spring roster is filled with guys developing within the program or transfer additions.

“They’re doing fine, but none of those guys have ever played,” Gundy said. “They’re much better now than they were two weeks ago. We’re a better team now than we were two weeks ago. … We’re further along as a team, and we’re further along even in the offensive line. But we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”