Big 12 expansion has Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy looking scared

Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy let it be known that he was against the Big 12 expanding, but he’s using some pretty lame reasoning as to why.

Mike Gundy. He’s a man. He’s forty…nine (my how time flies). But when it comes to the subject of Big 12 expansion, the Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach sounds more like an impetuous teen who won’t be getting dad’s car for the weekends anymore.

“I just feel like I have a right to an opinion,” Gundy told sports radio personality Jim Rome on Tuesday per NewsOK.com., “and whether people like it or not, I can’t determine that.”

Gundy says no to the idea of expanding the Big 12 (an idea that practically everyone not named Mike Gundy has been begging to see for years now), and he’s not shy about saying why.

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"“Now, I’m not an administrator, and I don’t get the bottom line on statistics and numbers and whatever that may be. I said it a year or two ago and even before then that the Longhorn Network created an issue for this league, period. Then secondly, there was a lot of talk about our league with expansion and there were some issues with College Football Playoff. Well we got a team in last year, and two years ago if we would have just said our Big 12 champion is Baylor, in my opinion, we would have marketed them enough to get them in so we would have been two for two with the College Football Playoff. We have nine conference games, the league is not watered down … so I say no.”"

While the Big 12 is not “watered down” the idea that their conference is getting away with one less game and one less potential big loss than the other Power-5 conferences doesn’t sit well.

Gundy also raised the question of recruiting – specifically about Houston being one of the possible invitees to the league.

“The concern is, and where that comment is coming from, is if your northern schools put a southern school, and another school in Texas, in the same league, that essentially is going to pull recruits from all of us,” Gundy said via SB Nation. “That’s what it comes down to. Anyone that’s not in Texas will have a more difficult time recruiting Texas if another Texas school gets in this league.”

Does Gundy seriously believe that every major program in the nation isn’t already recruiting in Texas, one of the most talent-rich high school football states in the nation? The University of Houston may be able to land a few recruits that otherwise may have passed them over for being in a Group of Five conference, but the damage to Big 12 programs in that respect will surely be limited.

The vocal coach and his sticking points didn’t go unnoticed by the Houston media either, as Patrick Creighton – part of SB Nation 1560 and formlerly with CBS Radio in Houston – made a point of calling Gundy out as “scared” in a recent broadcast (listen below).

Not much room for interpretation there from Mr. Creighton, and frankly, he’s spot on in his assessment of Gundy’s objections to expansion and specifically Houston.

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Suck it up, Mike. The Big 12 needs to expand, it needs a true championship game, and Houston has proved they deserve to be in a Power-5 conference. If Oklahoma State recruiting suffers and the program withers as a result of Houston joining the league, then perhaps Creighton is right – you need to be better at recruiting.

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