Mike Gundy lists Nick Saban, Mack Brown as possible college football commissioners

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy has major concerns about the future of college football. To address those concerns, he shared that he believes that college football should have a commissioner, pointing to either former Alabama head coach Nick Saban or current North Carolina head coach Mack Brown to fill that role.

This idea from Gundy comes shortly after the news that athletic directors from the Big Ten and SEC are going to meet to discuss ideas for the future, including a scheduling agreement and a new look for the postseason.

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“There’s just a few things,” Mike Gundy said. “It’s a simple process. College football needs a commissioner. And if it’s one of the four guys, now, if it’s the guy at SEC commissioner, I don’t care, we need a commissioner. And then we need the Power Four, Power Five if we go back to it. Those commissioners are under them. And then we need a football oversight rules committee that is going to enforce the whatever rules that we say there are whether that is recruiting, nil, salary cap, employment agreements, transfers, whatever those rules are, and they need to follow the NFL model.”

This comes at a time of major change throughout college football. The Transfer Portal and NIL have made how rosters are constructed completely different. On top of that, the House Settlement could lead to revenue sharing with teams. With those changes, Mike Gundy is considering replicating the NFL model.

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“The NFL has been an ultra-successful money-making machine for over 50 years, and the reason why is because they have equality amongst the troops. So, they have, what is it, 32 teams. They have salary caps, they have free agency. They have all the things that are in place to create equality, which allows the last-place team to have the first draft and the Super Bowl champion to have the last draft. So, they continue to have equal teams,” Gundy said.

“So, you might have a team in the NFL that wins four games in the next year, if they get a good free agency trade, which is the portal we have, or they pick up a high-round pick, they might win 10 games next year, make the playoffs. So, people turn TVs on and they continue to watch it now all the time. That’s what has to happen in college football.”

Mike Gundy emphasized that the conferences with the most money are going to drive change in college athletics. However, he also cautioned about what could happen if those schools became the only ones who have access.

“In my opinion, it’s going to be driven by the commissioner of the SEC and the Big Ten, because they have the most money right now based on long-term television contracts. But that money is not going to matter if everything becomes one-dimensional, one-sided, if we get a bunch of teams that have all this money and then we have the other 30 teams that have a moderate amount of money, then how many people on the west coast and the East Coast who don’t have teams playing in the playoffs anymore, and it’s all the teams from the same two conferences, maybe, and I know that a winner Big 12 gets in. I get that, but you see what I’m saying,” Gundy said.

“And then I live on the East Coast or the West Coast, and I never have a team in the playoffs and so why do I watch that anymore? I don’t care. I don’t, there’s no teams, I don’t get to see anything. There’s no equality among college football. And I turn the television off. Now we got a problem.”

Among the major changes that the SEC and Big Ten are considering is changes to the postseason. That includes four auto-bids for each of those two conferences and a postseason scheduling agreement between the two conferences. With that, Mike Gundy wants to see a commissioner have more impact, and he pointed to Nick Saban and Mack Brown as candidates.

“So, it is a big picture,” Gundy said. “I don’t have enough time to go to all of it. I just gave you a short version of what I think should happen. You know, Coach Brown in North Carolina when he retires, Coach Saban, that’s your football commissioner. That’s Roger Goodell for us, in my opinion. Because he knows what he’s doing, he gets it. But in that situation, the reason that’s being driven that way is because of money.”

The House Settlement is a major point of concern moving forward as well, with it still being tied up in court. So, schools need to be prepared for that without the complete knowledge of what it’s going to mean for them.

” So, there is some thought based on the amount of money that’s going to be spent, because we have no idea now, because she hasn’t even gotten close to signing off on this agreement, and the plaintiffs, who are set to earn over $100 million, attorneys haven’t gotten close to signing agreements. So, that tells you, in my opinion, they’re a long ways off. Most people that have the ability to earn hundreds of millions of dollars probably find a solution,” Gundy said.

“So, something’s going on. Okay? Those two conferences have more money than anybody based on television revenue and money now for NIL can be funneled through the universities, correct? So, when that happens, then there’s going to be money funneled. Ten days ago, Georgia governor signed off and said, the NCAA now has no legislation or no power over schools that are in the state of Georgia. If we want to pay our players through the school, we will pay our players through the school. Isn’t that what he said, yeah, okay, so what does that mean?”

Despite seeing all these issues in college football, Mike Gundy doesn’t want to take on that role of commissioner himself. He’s just concerned about what will happen.

“It’ll be hard to find me when I’m done coaching. It won’t be watching football, at a game, or any of that. Or being a college football commissioner, because that’s just — but I will say this. For the sake of the game, we’re at a real dangerous predicament right now. And I hope somebody, like — I probably need to text Coach Saban before I say this, but I hope somebody like that becomes a college football commissioner, because he understands the importance of equality, in my opinion, because he’s a smart man that’s been in it for a long time,” Gundy said.

“But that’s what we need, and we need to get it as fast as we can, before we start to lose it and then try to recover back, ala NASCAR and LIV with PGA golf has become a mess because of that.”