Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy offered advice — “jokingly,” he said — to new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark on Wednesday: Don’t let the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners continue to participate in the league’s business meetings.
Gundy, who has been Oklahoma State coach since 2005, said he’s surprised that the Longhorns and Sooners — who will join the SEC on July 1, 2025, if not earlier — were still involved in Big 12 meetings.
“It’s interesting,” Gundy told reporters shortly after his remarks onstage at Big 12 media days. “We go to conference meetings, and OU and Texas are in there. They’re still in the conference. But I’m guessing when they leave, they’re scratching down things that can help them when they’re in the SEC. So it is an unusual situation. I think there’s a business side of it that nowadays people say, ‘It is what it is.’ Which 10 years ago, they might not even let them in meetings.
“The new commissioner, I mean, honestly, if I was him, I wouldn’t let OU and Texas in any meetings.”
Gundy said he was excited about Yormark’s background, calling him an “absolute perfect fit for what college football is today.” He also compared the situation Yormark is inheriting with Texas and Oklahoma to how corporations operate when someone leaves for a competitor.
“I say that jokingly,” Gundy said. “But I mean, if you’re strategically in a business meeting, if it’s two cellphone companies, I don’t want somebody from their company in my company.”
Gundy said in his opening remarks that there doesn’t seem to be a scenario where Oklahoma State and Oklahoma would continue their Bedlam rivalry series in football after the Sooners’ departure from the conference.
“The future of Bedlam is there’s a year or two left,” Gundy said. “I mean, that’s the future of Bedlam, based on somebody else’s decision.”
He later told reporters that continuing the series isn’t logistically possible with the two schools being in different conferences.
“It’s not really feasible,” Gundy said. “We’re scheduled out through ’32? ’33? Most conferences, once all this settles down, you’re gonna have a minimum of nine conference games, in my opinion. So you’re talking about contract buyouts, and you’re talking about convincing head coaches to play another game, which would be like playing another conference game. There’s a lot going on. I think most fans would love to do it. I just don’t think it’s feasible to happen, in my opinion.”
Gundy elicited laughs when he compared conference realignment to The Carpenters’ 1970 hit “We’ve Only Just Begun,” saying he thought about realignment when he recently heard the song.
Gundy said that he didn’t know whether Texas or Oklahoma would stay in the conference until their grant of rights expire in 2025 but that he was fine with an early exit if they wanted to pay the Big 12.
“If they leave early and they dump $80 million our way, I think that’s awesome,” Gundy said.
