Brent Venables addresses support for Cale Gundy from former players

Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables recently spoke to ESPN about the resignation of Cale Gundy, the Oklahoma Sooners longtime receivers coach, after Gundy allegedly said a “racially charged” word multiple times during a film session with players — descriptions of the incident are varied. Venables has stood by Gundy’s decision to resign from his job, ardently, and repeatedly highlighted that he wants what is best for his players and the Sooners upcoming season.

Moreover, Venables also specifically touched on handling support for Gundy from former Oklahoma players following his resignation. Former Sooners like Joe Mixon, Adrian Peterson and Dede Westbrook all took to social media to support Gundy following his resignation. The decision for Gundy to go was ultimately his own, Venables said, and he still thinks it was the correct call.

“There’s a whole collection of us involved when these kinds of things happen, a whole team of us, and at the end of the day it was Cale that resigned, and that was his decision, the right decision,” Venables said to ESPN. “He didn’t want to be a distraction and knew what happened wasn’t right.

Gundy announced his resignation on Twitter shortly before midnight on August 7, just days into fall camp for Oklahoma. Venables didn’t run from the fact that having a position coach go during fall camp is a big hit, but he reiterated that it was ultimately necessary. Oklahoma has since hired L’Damian Washington to be the new wide receivers coach.

“The timing was awful,” Venables said. “But as a team, we addressed it the next day and moved on to business.”

Gundy gets support from his brother and Oklahoma State Head Coach Mike Gundy

In another ESPN story, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy weighed in on his brother Cale’s situation and more. While he understands the move, Gundy also makes it clear that their bond as brother in not changing.

“I think the thing to do is six months from now to call him and ask him,” Mike Gundy said. “We have talked more the last week than we have in the last year. I just want him to know that I’m here for him, so we haven’t gotten into what all happened. There will be a time for that, but he understands sometimes that life’s not fair.”

Despite the details which came out, Mike Gundy makes the case that Cale’s actions in that moment do not define him as a person. That sentiment was echoed in the response by several of his former players.

“We’ve always tried to stay away from that because we didn’t want to put our families under the microscope more than they already were, but he will have plenty of options to do whatever he wants to do. He’s a good person,” said Mike Gundy.