How Will They Do It Without Mack Butler?
Editor’s Note: We are re-stacking this story at the top of the story carousel because Friday, Jan. 8 is Mack Butler’s last day on the job as Director of Football Operations at Oklahoma State. Butler has been a major contributor to the success of football at OSU under both Mike Gundy and Les Miles. Butler is a class act and frankly, the best in college football at what he does.
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State will have some major road trips in the 2021 football season as they travel to Boise State for a non conference game on Sept. 18 and then during Big 12 play take their three longest trips in any season with games at West Virginia, at Iowa State, and at Texas Tech. They also go to Austin for Texas and that can sometimes be a complicated trip if it is the same weekend as a music festival or a Formula One race. For the past 12 seasons Butler has scheduled out the Oklahoma State football season on paper for every person in the department from players to coaches to support staff to follow. The Mack Butler itinerary is famous. It is the itinerary that all sports director of operations or professional sports traveling secretaries should use as the standard.
Butler’s fall football camp itineraries are invaluable as the grind of fall camp sometimes makes it hard to think or reason, but as long as you can read you can be at the right place and not miss a meal or a meeting.
As far as road trips, during Butler’s time, which also includes four-years from 2001-04 at Oklahoma State serving for Les Miles there has never been a bus late, a plane late, or rarely anything happen more than just a few minutes off the time stated on the itinerary. If there was, it was an act of God and there was nothing that Mack Butler could do about it.
He was named the Director of Football Operations of the Year in 2014 by Football Scoop. The former high school and junior college football coach, Brown started in football operation at Tulsa. After moving over to Oklahoma State, he left with Miles and was at LSU for five seasons where he was part of a national championship with the Tigers.
Fans may not notice the difference, but when things run smooth and coaches and players have the supreme confidence that they will run smooth then games have a much better chance or being won because the players and coaches can focus on it.
“There is no doubt about it, Robert. My job is to make sure the players and coaches put all their energy into what they do,” Butler has told me in the past. “If they don’t have to worry about getting there or where they sleep or what and when they eat then they can worry about winning a football game.”
“I don’t know how we will do it,” head coach Mike Gundy said. “Mack Butler is the best there is and now we need to replace him. This is going to be hard.”
Gundy knows that Rod Johnson, who has served as Mack’s assistant is prepared, but now who will be the second person involved. Butler, who is retiring and likely would have anyway, is part of the cuts in the athletic department that saw other team’s director of operations cut. There is a difference in those smaller groups and football where a normal road trip travels close to 130 people and a bowl trip travels as many as 300 with families going. It is a two person job even on an everyday basis where Johnson has worked mostly on taking care of player’s needs.
It is appropriate and enough said right now to congratulate and salute Mack Butler for his contributions and he may be most proud of his bowl record of 8-4 since he returned to work with the Mike Gundy-coached Cowboys.
At some point in time, it will be important to think about how and who will handle all of that responsibility in the future.