STILLWATER, Oklahoma — While Mike Gundy was slow to embrace some of the recent changes to college football, the next wave of movement in the game intrigues the Oklahoma State coach.
University leaders are waiting for U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to finalize the NCAA antitrust settlement that will open the door for colleges to directly pay athletes, and the implications of it often occupy Gundy’s mind.
‘It’s very intriguing,’ he said last week. ‘Everybody’s waiting to see if she signs off on this settlement. Then we’ll have parameters and then we can start attacking how you distribute $20 million amongst 105 people.
‘So it’s very interesting to even think about that, almost unfathomable.’
Yet Gundy’s primary message to his team right now remains simple: Focus on football, and only football.
‘The good news is, the next five months, we can just play football,’ he said. ‘There’s no negotiating now. The portal’s over. All the negotiation’s history. Now we’re playing football. The business side of what we do now – we have to have those conversations with them. ‘Tell your agent to quit calling us and asking for more money. It’s non-negotiable now. It’ll start again in December.’
‘So now we’re able to direct ourselves just in football, and that part is fun.’
Pieces of that quote made the rounds on social media in recent days, but often taken out of context of his full message – instead trying to suggest Gundy was fighting back against name, image and likeness deals that the Oklahoma State collective, Pokes with a Purpose, has made with football players.
Rather, Gundy’s point was that the agreements have been made, and until the regular season ends, he’s discussing football, not finances.
‘As we progress here toward the NFL and players will have employment contracts, there’s a whole line of things that are going to fall into place here in the next four to six, 12 months, probably 18 months,’ Gundy said. ‘If (Wilken) signs off on this settlement, and it stays close to what it’s supposed to be and then they weed through Title IX, then they’re going to weed through roster numbers and different things, then there will be some guidelines.
‘Everything is new, and it’s kind of fascinating to me now.’
Gundy has hired former Oklahoma State linebacker Kenyatta Wright as the program’s financial director. Wright has previously been involved with Pokes with a Purpose, giving him some perspective on college football in the NIL era.
But until the settlement is finalized and the parameters are set, too many unknowns exist.
‘How you gonna get enough money to finance yourself through NIL?’ Gundy asked rhetorically. ‘What kind of contracts you gonna have? Are they gonna be employees? Are they not gonna be employees? We all think we know what’s gonna happen, but we don’t know.’
In the multiple times Gundy has discussed these topics, he continually comes back to one statement that supersedes everything else.
‘It’s going to change again,’ he said. ‘Over the next 5 ½ months, we can just play football. That is what I’ve asked the staff to do and the players to do, is get out of the realm of all this stuff that’s gone on and just play football through January.
‘After that, we can get back into it.’