Oregon dominates Cowboys after Gundy ‘pours gasoline on fireplace’

EUGENE, Ore. — Per week that started with head coaches Mike Gundy and Dan Lanning buying and selling barbs about every program’s finances ended with Oregon handing Oklahoma State a 69-3 loss — the worst of the Gundy period and the worst this system has seen since 1907.

“It never requires extra motivation for an opportunity to go out and kick ass,” Lanning mentioned postgame relating to the message he despatched his crew. “But it never hurts when somebody pours gasoline on the fire.”

On Monday whereas talking on his radio present, Gundy mentioned Oregon is “paying a lot of money for their team,” citing $40 million as the quantity he believed the Ducks spent on their roster final 12 months. Gundy made a number of different feedback about Oregon’s assets — he mentioned “it’ll cost a lot of money to keep” quarterback Dante Moore and that he believes Oregon’s finances ought to decide the packages it schedules exterior of the Big Ten.

“If you want to be a top-10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning. We spend to win,” Lanning mentioned Monday in response. “Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t. … I can’t speak on their situation; I have no idea what they got in their pockets over there.”

After Saturday’s win, Moore mentioned Gundy’s feedback hit “close to home” for him and the remainder of the crew and that the Ducks used them as motivation heading into the matchup.

“For him to attack Phil [Knight], Coach Lanning and our team was personal,” Moore, who threw for 266 yards and three touchdowns, mentioned. “We were going to keep the foot on the neck and make sure we score these points and try to break the scoreboard.”

Break the scoreboard, they did. The Ducks had a 59-yard landing run on their second offensive play of the sport and a 65-yard landing cross on their third offensive play of the sport. Explosive performs have been all over the place at Autzen as Oklahoma State’s protection supplied little to no resistance. Oregon’s offense didn’t punt till the fourth quarter and totaled 631 yards to Oklahoma State’s 211 yards.

“It was a lot of fire going into this game,” Moore mentioned.

The approach Oregon got here out of the gates, stepped on the gasoline pedal and did not relent till it was up 48-3 midway by the third quarter, when it introduced within the offensive backups, appeared very purposeful. The two pick-sixes that pushed the Ducks’ rating into the 60s added insult to harm.

“It’s still about us,” Lanning mentioned. “Our ability to ignore the noise is the thing that’s going to make us go.”

Lanning, as he did on Monday, mentioned postgame that he has quite a lot of respect for Gundy and even famous that the consequence in all probability had Gundy saying “I told you so” relating to his feedback in regards to the disparity in assets between the 2 colleges.

“When I made that comment, I was complimenting Oregon for what they had done,” Gundy mentioned. “Second thing, which I said later in the week is, we’ve made commitments also, but we have to be better and fundamentally sound and execute.”

Gundy is now 4-10 over his previous 14 video games because the Cowboys’ head coach, and two of these losses — Saturday’s at Oregon and final 12 months’s 52-0 loss to Colorado — are the worst of his profession.

“Sometimes you’re going to play people that have the ability to run away from you,” Gundy mentioned. “We gotta look at that and see where we’re at. We didn’t play good enough, in the systems that we had, to put ourselves in that position.”

As the warmth rises across the coach who has helmed the Oklahoma State program since 2005, Gundy’s son, Gavin, took to X to defend his father.

“Mike Gundy IS Oklahoma State football,” Gavin mentioned as a part of an extended thread of posts. “Period. As QB, he set records in the Barry Sanders era. As coach, he stacked 160+ wins, 19 straight bowls, a Big 12 title, two Fiesta Bowls, multiple Top-10 finishes, & sent dudes to the NFL year after year. He’s the winningest coach in OSU history & the most important name this program has EVER had. Without him, you’d have nothing to brag about, nothing to watch, nothing to cry about”

Soon after, Gavin’s thread was deleted from the location.