Harvey Dent was right.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Dent said in the 2008 film The Dark Knight.
The Gotham City district attorney in Batman comics, television and movies was introduced as a white knight, pledging to clean up crime-ridden Gotham, much to the cheers and adulation of its citizens.
In the end, however, Dent transformed into the evil and demented “Two-Face” and became another bad guy among the rogue’s gallery of Batman antagonists.
I imagine Mike Gundy would likely nod knowingly to Dent’s ultimate fate and his prescient quote.
Gundy was dismissed as the head football coach at Oklahoma State last week, and it seemed inevitable — both in terms of the last few seasons and in the long view since his hiring in 2005.
Football coaches seldom leave on their own terms, at any level. In college, their rise and fall can feel like Shakespearean tragedy. Often, newly hired coaches are greeted as saviors upon arrival. If the coach manufactures several successful seasons, he could be anointed as a de facto “coach-for-life” by the fanbase, feted as nothing less than a conquering hero.
Rarely do those things end well, however. It’s simply the nature of the beast, as something always seems to sour the school/coach relationship. Wins can begin to dry up (Mack Brown — Texas; Bobby Bowden — Florida State; Frank Beamer — Virginia Tech), sordid off-field issues can arise (Joe Paterno — Penn State; Urban Meyer — Ohio State; Barry Switzer — Oklahoma) and even nasty ON-field issues can spell demise (Woody Hayes — Ohio State).
The endings for all these coaches ranged from sad to downright criminal. In all these cases, it would have seemed unfathomable only a few seasons earlier that they would not lead their respective universities’ programs forever.
The same goes for Gundy. In two of his last four completed seasons, his Oklahoma State Cowboys had both defeated their arch-nemesis Oklahoma and played for a conference title. After the 2023 season, his job felt as secure as any in the country.
He was also a favorite son of Stillwater, already a hero after quarterbacking the Cowboys during a successful stint in the late 1980s. While hiring a former player as a head coach at a school isn’t exactly novel, it can cause idolatry to reach fever levels if he proves successful — which Gundy was.
It still doesn’t promise job security, however. In 2019, 16 head coaches worked at their alma maters, but only three remain just six years later.
Therefore, Gundy wasn’t exactly treading on sacred ground despite success as a player and a coach in Stillwater.
So, when the losses piled up last season, it didn’t take long for grumbling to begin, regardless of Gundy’s past success and alumnus status. It also wasn’t just wins and losses: The overly direct path that thoughts flew from his brain to his mouth eroded his support. From his infamous “I’m-a-man-I’m-40” rant a decade-and-a-half ago, to his ill-timed comments last year in the midst of a losing streak about OSU fans’ inability to pay bills, Gundy could regularly be his own worst enemy.
So, when the OSU administration eventually awoke from its three-day slumber to fire Gundy on an oddly timed Tuesday, the man who had spent 35 years playing a heroic OSU Cowboy had already been cast in his final starring role for Oklahoma State:
The villain.
Meanwhile, as I still ponder one question about how Gundy got gone — why fire a coach on Tuesday after he’s already done that week’s press conference and coaching shows? — the only villain at my house is the headache I got from this weekend’s Hangover Highlights! Let’s dive in!
- When an interim coach takes over midseason for his fired predecessor, it usually goes one of two ways, with little in-between. Either the team absolutely quits and becomes cannon fodder for whatever school awaits them on the schedule, or the coach’s firing is used as a rallying cry to perform above expectations.
- Kudos to the Oklahoma State players for being the latter in Saturday’s 45-27 loss to Baylor. The Cowboys had every excuse not to fight hard after their coach was fired — on Tuesday! — and the entire program was put on trial following a disastrous 1-2 start. Yet, there they were, down just a single score at halftime.
- The Cowboys eventually capitulated and lost by 18 points to the heavily favored Bears, but as much as I abhor the term “moral victories,” OSU can hang its hat on one this weekend. Interim head coach Doug Meacham had a plethora of trick plays dialed up for Baylor, and I’ll be damned if nearly all of them worked.
- It just wasn’t enough, however. Whatever we want to say about dismissed head coach Mike Gundy, there’s no doubt he left the cupboard bare of high-end talent. OSU can gameplan itself a chance to score some points here and there but, in the end, it’s all window dressing considering the Cowboys lack of elite athletes compared to every team remaining on their schedule. With the number of trick plays that worked Saturday, the immediate adrenaline brought on from their coach being fired, and Baylor likely being WEAKER than any upcoming team on the schedule, I fear this weekend might be as good as it gets for the rest of the Cowboys’ season.
- Normally, I wouldn’t discuss a team that didn’t even play this week, but there was more buzz around OU than there usually is during a regular game week. With an opposable digit on quarterback John Mateer’s throwing hand evidently busted up during the Auburn game last weekend, the local mic jokceys and keyboard warriors all became orthopedic experts.
- Mateer was patched up by world-renowned (and meme-able) surgeon Dr. Steven Shin. The question is, when will the erstwhile Heisman Trophy contender continue taking snaps for the Sooners? Oversimplifying greatly, some seem to think a rule of thumb (see what I did there?) for such a surgery leaves a 25 percent chance of Mateer being back by the Oct. 11 Texas game, a 50 percent chance by the Oct. 18 South Carolina contest and 75 percent chance by the Oct. 25 Ole Miss matchup.
- What does this mean for OU going forward? Well, the Sooners could beat Kent State next weekend even with Jonathan Moxon at quarterback, so no worries there. Against Texas, however, it’s hard for me to imagine backup that Michael Hawkins, who led OU’s toothless attack in a 34-3 loss to the Longhorns last year, could flip the script so dramatically for a win.
- To me, the real questions are whether it’ll be Hawkins or Mateer against South Carolina and Ole Miss, and can the quarterback position do enough to pull off otherwise winnable games against those foes?
- Back to teams that did play this weekend: A second TV was needed, and acquired, for the living room of Cowenstan National Stadium on Saturday evening so spectators could watch both Oregon at Penn State and Alabama at Georgia.
- Neither game disappointed.
- Alabama upset Georgia, 24-21, while Oregon did the same to Penn State, 30-24, in overtime. Alabama redeemed itself from a Week 1 loss to Florida State, while Oregon stamped itself as one of the top two or three teams in the playoff race.
- The two schools won in similar fashion by taking a big early lead and then holding on. Alabama led 14-0 and 24-14 at different points in the first half. A third-quarter Georgia touchdown cut things to 24-21, but that was the end of the scoring.
- With more than 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Georgia coach Kirby Smart eschewed a game-tying, chip-shot field goal from the 13-yard line to instead try a fourth-down-and-one. Smart’s Bulldogs were stymied on the attempt. A tie game, at home, with 13 minutes left, is not a bad spot in which to be. Smart got greedy, though, and it cost his team. I want to take this time to post a reminder college head coaches are usually the state’s highest-paid employees, yet they often can’t seem to work out simple math — such as three points would equal a tie game.
- Oregon had a seemingly insurmountable 17-3 lead in the fourth quarter of its showdown at Penn State … but things changed. Penn State began marching up and down the field, as it appeared the Ducks’ defense was physically spent from the bruising game. A Nittany Lions touchdown with 30 seconds left hurled the game into overtime and made Penn State fans wonder if this was FINALLY the time their team would beat an elite opponent.
- Nope. A quick Oregon score was followed by an eye-popping interception to seal the win. It was just another gut punch to the Penn State faithful who continue to search endlessly for a statement win under head coach James Franklin.
- Ole Miss toppled fourth-ranked LSU at home, 24-19. Quite honestly, it didn’t feel like an upset since the Rebels never trailed after the first quarter and looked like a better team throughout. With Ole Miss accomplishing the feat with a backup quarterback, and LSU’s season-opening win against Clemson looking increasingly suspect, what are we to believe about either team?
- The best game of the weekend unfolded on Friday night in Charlottesville, Virginia. The hometown Virginia Cavaliers bested eighth-ranked Florida State 46-38 in two overtimes.
- The game swung wildly, from a 14-0 lead by Virginia, to 21-14 lead for Florida State, to a 35-28 Virginia advantage in the fourth quarter before FSU tied it up with just 36 seconds remaining.
- The Cavaliers finally prevailed thanks to an interception in the second overtime, which led to one of the most intense field rushes I’ve seen.
- Considering three of the top five teams, and four of the top 10, lost this weekend — and accounting for Florida State’s win over Alabama in week one — I sense we’re at the part of the season where it feels like no team is “great.” It happens every year: There’s a week or two with upsets, and the ability to daisy-chain wins and losses crashes into a dead-end of common sense. We’re there now. The question is, will it continue as it did in 2007 such that we should gird our loins for an acid-trip of a season, or will it settle into more predictable outcomes?
- Who knows? We can, however, comfortably answer who the biggest winner was this weekend: Pudge the Cat, who skipped Bowling Green’s loss to Ohio on Saturday for a relaxing spa day where he was pampered as only the King of College Football should be.
- We may not be sure which football team is truly good this season, but at least we know Pudge continues his reign.
