Mike Gundy on NCAA denying joint spring practice: 'If somebody goes and does it, what are they gonna do?'

One week after suggesting Oklahoma and Oklahoma State should meet during spring practice, possibly for a spring game, Cowboys coach Mike Gundy has offered more thoughts on the concept. He does so after the NCAA denied Colorado and Syracuse the right to host joint practices.

Simply put, Gundy isn’t a fan of the decision. He noted:

“I mean I mentioned it the other day, I just thought of the deal with OU,” Gundy said. “I think it’s a good deal. I would like to do it. I would like to practice against them.”

In ruling against providing a waiver for teams to compete against each other in a spring game, the NCAA noted concerns over academics and recruiting advantages not available to other programs. The rushed timing was also cited as a factor.

But Gundy doesn’t understand where the ruling is coming from. And he’s already ready to move on.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’m not going to waste my time on who’s going to determine what the rules are anymore,” Gundy said. “Because essentially there’s not really enough of them to follow. And I’m not sure how they have grounds to say you can’t do it. Like if somebody just goes and does it, what are they going to do to them?”

Gundy left the question open-ended before a reporter chimed in with a different question and his press conference continued. So that’s all he had to say on the topic for now.

Mike Gundy suggests facing Oklahoma

After Colorado initially floated the idea of hosting a joint spring practice with someone this year, Syracuse took the bid and publicly agreed to do so if the NCAA would allow. The organization would, of course, rule against it.

However, before it did, others had a chance to express their interest in the idea. Including Gundy.

Gundy stated that he thought Oklahoma and Oklahoma State playing each other in the spring could be a real win-win for both programs. He even suggested ways to make it NIL-friendly.

“That’s something we’ve talked about,” Gundy said. “I think it’s a great idea… Honestly, for us, we should do a home and home with OU in the spring… They should come here on the 19th. I think theirs is earlier in the year, we should go down there and play a home-and-home against each other in the spring. Charge $25 a head, they can use it for NIL, we can use it for NIL. If they don’t want to do two in one spring, we can do one here this year, do it there next year, and split the gate. Because we get tired of practicing against each other.”