After Gundy goes off, maybe next move should be out

Mike Gundy needs to be reprimanded, definitely suspended, probably fined and maybe fired.

If you missed the Oklahoma State coach's outburst Saturday, you missed the mother of all meltdowns. At least the mother of all meltdowns over something as common as a columnist's opinion.

Mike Gundy has a 13-15 record since taking over at Oklahoma State in 2005. (US Presswire)

Coaches usually reserve their tirades for more important things like fumbles, arrests or their own marital problems. Even then, most coaches have the decency to do their yelling behind closed doors.

Okie State's third-year coach verbally attacked a woman, a journalist and degraded his profession after Saturday's win over Texas Tech. Jenni Carlson, a columnist for the Daily Oklahoman, wrote a fair and balanced column Saturday regarding quarterback Bobby Reid. Typical of his coaching style, Gundy had replaced Reid as starter before the Sept. 13 game against Troy without explanation. As is her job in that situation, Carlson tried to explain why Reid lost his job in her column.

Try reading it and then tell me what is unfair, or personal. First, you have to understand that this is not the first time Gundy has overreacted. As immediate past president of the Football Writers Association of the America, I wrote him last year regarding media access. There pretty much wasn't any at a program that still fails to realize it lives in a huge shadow in its own state (ever hear of Oklahoma?) and is an afterthought in the national conversation. So for Gundy to attack Carlson for not knowing what's going on, well, that's Hypocrisy 101. Like a lot of his colleagues, Gundy wants it both ways. He wants his super-secret, sacrosanct program to be accountable to no one.

And then he whines when someone dares pull the curtain back to take a peek.

So far, though, the approach has worked for him and his enablers in Stillwater. For everyone else, Gundy is a 13-15 coach at a program that no one outside his clandestine world cares about.

He hides his players -- whose scholarships are paid for by tax dollars and contributions -- and then criticizes when journalists try to do their jobs.

In a way, this is an indictment of readers and fans in Oklahoma. They should demand more of a coach whose credibility so far has ended at the football field where he was a successful quarterback for the Cowboys. Certainly he has less than the man he replaced, Les Miles.

The players are public figures, Mike, just like you are. You, though, are more public than most. You are the benefactor of a $165 million gift from Okie State sugar daddy T. Boone Pickens. Oklahoma State is getting great facilities but not the wins that are expected to follow them.

Or maybe that's the media's fault.

Gundy needs to be penalized, because the Big 12 office should not let this pass. The league was still gathering information Sunday. The column and outburst were quickly passed along to commissioner Dan Beebe.

No matter what the outcome, the coach shamed the league and his profession.