Mike Gundy uses Jim Harbaugh troll to zing Ohio State, Ryan Day

Ohio State recently plucked Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles away from Stillwater, hiring him to the same position with the Buckeyes. At Oklahoma State’s National Signing Day press conference, head coach Mike Gundy took a moment to talk about losing Knowles, and he also threw in a shot at Ohio State and Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day as well.

“Our recruiting staff has been fabulous,” Gundy said. “They guide our defensive staff, and those guys do a good job. Here’s the deal, there’s continuity and structure over here because I’ve been here 18 years. When you have that, you have continuity and you have structure. You have what you call consistency. Parents understand that. The recruits understand that. Coach Knowles was a fabulous coach, and we’d have liked to keep him here for 100 years.

“He’s not going to be here anymore. Nothing’s gonna change. We won’t miss a beat. We’ll hire another coordinator. I’ve done that for years and years and years. It’s my job to find a smart, loyal, hard-working person who’s gonna come in here and work with them, whether I hire from inside or I hire from outside. Gotta hire somebody. That’s not going to be a problem because they’ll come in this culture. If they don’t want to come into this culture, it doesn’t make a difference to me who it is or how good he is, they’re not coming. We’re not changing what we do.”

Ohio State signed Knowles to a three-year contract that will pay him $5.7 million in total, or $1.9 million per season. He is the highest paid assistant coach in Ohio State program history.

Gundy referred to a Jim Harbaugh comment to troll Ohio State

As Gundy continued to talk about Ohio State hiring Knowles away from Oklahoma State, he eventually made an interesting comment about Ohio State, taking us back to a strong comment that recently came from Jim Harbaugh.

“Consistency is the most important thing in building a big-time college football program, in my opinion,” Gundy added. “Now, I’ve never been at some of these schools where as people say you wake up on third base and you think you hit a triple. I’ve never been there, so I don’t know what it’s like to coach at a school like that. Coach Knowles will know.”

After Michigan finally got a win over Ohio State late in the season, Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh took a direct shot at Ryan Day and the Buckeyes. If Gundy’s comments sound familiar, that’s because it was a direct quote from a Harbaugh comment after Michigan’s win.

“Some people were born on third and think they hit a triple,” Harbaugh said of Ohio State after Michigan’s win.