Following a disheartening loss in a second-rate bowl game after a disappointing season, Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy seemed to take out his frustrations on a local reporter for asking a basic question during the post-game press conference.
“Don’t be an ass,” Gundy fumed at one point.
After a stellar 12-2 season in 2021 and a promising 6-1 start to this year, Gundy’s squad finished 2022 on a 1-5 skid, ending with a 24-17 loss to the Wisconsin Badgers in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl on Tuesday night.
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Oklahoma State’s final defeat was especially frustrating as the Cowboys pulled within a touchdown late in the game, only for freshman quarterback Garret Rangel to toss an interception with three minutes remaining. Rangel only drew the start because Spencer Sanders, the team’s starting QB for the past four seasons, entered the transfer portal.
Speaking to the press after the game, Gundy was asked by reporter Marshall Scott whether he anticipated making any staff changes after the season following the subpar season and bowl loss. Not only was Gundy not happy with the question, but he threatened to cut off access to Scott in the future for merely asking it.
“Do you think I would tell you if I was making staff changes?” Gundy grumbled, prompting Scott to say no. “Then why would you ask?!”
When the reporter noted that it was his job to ask such questions, the longtime Cowboys coach retorted: “I might have to cut you out. Don’t be an ass!”
Gundy then suggested that Scott was disrupting the lives of his coaches’ families with his query before questioning the local journalist’s intelligence.
“Those are people’s lives, man. Those are people’s families,” Gundy groused. “Don’t mess with people’s families. Let’s do this the right way. That’s not fair to people’s families. I’m not mad about the game. I just don’t like ignorance.”
And with that, the coach stood up and walked out of the press conference.
Scott, for his part, took to Twitter on Wednesday to issue a statement on the exchange. While saying he hopes Gundy “understands I was just trying to do my job in asking the question,” the reporter added his own takeaways from the interaction.
“I’ve had time to reflect on the change, and, while I think it was a fair question, I wonder if it was the correct time or place,” he wrote. “That’s something I need to ponder more about. I’ll continue to learn through this.”
Gundy’s tenure with Oklahoma State has been marked with controversies and run-ins with the press. He had an infamous face-off with The Oklahoman reporter Jenni Carlson in 2007, for instance. Condemning an article Carlson wrote about the team’s quarterback at the time, Gundy accused her of personally attacking the player before shouting: “Come after me! I'm a man! I'm forty!”
Additionally, Gundy faced criticism from his own players in 2020 when he was spotted wearing a t-shirt supporting the far-right conspiratorial cable channel One America News, resulting in the coach vowing to make “some changes” after the team’s running back threatened to boycott team activities.
