Mike Gundy reveals how he would 'fix' college football: 'There's a solution to it'

Mike Gundy stepped to the podium Saturday for Oklahoma State’s media day with a plan. He shared how he would “fix” college football.

Gundy argued there is a solution to settling the landscape as the sport adjusts to the revenue-sharing era. Schools are now able to directly share up to $20.5 million with athletes after approval of the House settlement, and that figure will increase by 4% annually under the 10-year agreement.

But as the dollars flow, Gundy called for two things – “equality” and a commissioner. When it comes to distributing rev-share dollars, he called for the power conferences to get in a room with a commissioner-like figure and work toward an NFL-like model.

“You need a commissioner,” Gundy told reporters. “You’ve got to get one person in charge and then, they’ve got to get the four power people in one room and they’ve all got to start talking about equality and how can we revenue-share across the country? And we follow the NFL pattern.

“If you’re not going to make them employees and collective bargain, I get it, but how are we going to fix it? That’s just the way I see it. I’ve said it and I’ll say it again, you can’t have a group that’s getting all this money and a group that’s getting all this money, and then expect people to want to watch television when one of those teams plays one of these teams.”

When it comes to NIL support, some schools have more dollars at their disposal than others. While the $20.5 million cap is uniform for universities that opted in, the College Sports Commission updated its guidance this week, paving the way for NIL collectives to keep paying athletes through third-party deals. Those agreements still need to be vetted by the NIL Go clearinghouse.

There’s also the player movement aspect of the sport with the transfer portal. That’s another reason Gundy cited people in his own circle who say they’re not watching games, since they don’t know who’s playing.

“I think eventually, if they don’t fix it, it’s going to be difficult for people that actually … want to watch college football,” Gundy said. “My buddies back home want it fixed who I grew up with. They tell me that. They’ll say, ‘The only reason I watch is because you’re the coach. Otherwise, I don’t watch games anymore because I don’t even know who’s playing on the teams.’ We’ve got to get out of that, somehow.

“We can talk about it for three hours, but there’s a solution to it, and there’s got to be a give-and-take. Until one person’s in charge, there won’t be a lot of give and take.”

That said, training camp has arrived, and Week 1 is just a few weeks away. That’s why Mike Gundy’s message for his team was simple.

“The good news is this, like I told the coaches and the players, that’s over with. We get football now,” Gundy said. “We get to coach football and play football. That’s the good stuff.”