Chad Weiberg Press Conference Notebook: Timeline, Buyout and Contracts

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the firing of head football coach, Mike Gundy. 

Robert Allen broke the news of Gundy’s firing on Triple Play Sports Radio in the morning. 

Weiberg addressed the media and answered questions for roughly 45 minutes, in which he covered everything from his current contract situation, to the subsequent head coaching search, to the risks regarding potentially losing an entire recruiting period due to the coaching search. 

Weiberg gave his opening statement about Gundy, the decision to move on from him and the success Gundy had during his tenure. 

He did, however, make it clear the firing of Gundy wasn’t about one singular issue or comments made at any particular time, but rather things not stacking up to the expectations. 

“Yeah, this isn’t about one moment. If we were stacking up moments, there’s a whole lot of moments in the good category,” said Weiberg. “This is about the bigger picture. Absolutely, our donors and our fans are critically important. That’s true all the time, and it’s more important now than it ever has been, but this is not about one moment.” 

While yes, there are a lot of great moments, and I mean a lot, wins over OU, Fiesta Bowl wins, more than eight 10-win seasons, Weiberg spoke to the negative.

“I think that speaks a little bit to the timing of how we got here. This is not something I thought we would be doing today on this Tuesday. I fully expected to beat the University of Tulsa. I expected the results of this season to be different than they’ve been so far. Again, that goes back to the expectation level that Coach Gundy has set for this program. We have higher expectations than that, so when it doesn’t appear that that was not going to be met, it felt like for the good of the program it was time to make this decision so that we could start the process of getting the program where we want it to be. And that’s, you know, hard. I think the first decision is ‘What is the decision?’ And the next decision is, ‘What is the timing?’ And that in a lot of ways can be a harder decision, because I’ve not yet seen when is a good time or perfect time to do something like this. There’s no such thing. This is a hard thing to do, and there’s consequences however you do it, but I felt like in this case we needed to do it now so we could position the program to move forward in the future.”

One of the biggest points discussed throughout the day, and on into the press conference, revolved around the buyout owed to Mike Gundy. An important note, whether you believe it or not, was Weiberg saying it was not discussed with Mike about him finishing out the season. He also said they didn’t have the discussion with him about negotiating the buyout amount down.

He did say donors were not approached or talked to about either contributing or covering the cost of Mike’s $15 million buyout.

"It'll come out of just our revenues, our operating budget, those sorts of things. No, it's not a small amount of money, especially today when we're trying to do revenue sharing and all of those things. But it is just part of it, and we will honor our contractual obligations."

It was announced ahead of the press conference offensive coordinator Doug Meacham is now the interim head coach of the Cowboys. Weiberg confirmed that news in his press conference.

“We had some conversation about that, I think for a number of different reasons. I felt like he was the person, by elevating him to that position, would be the least disruptive to all of the other positions. If we were elevating someone else, I think it could create more moving parts than we already have. He is an alum, so I think he has an understanding of this place and the culture and the program. That was also a factor.”

But the first question he was asked about was the news Robert broke here on Pokes Report: Chad has a four-year contract extension on the way. He avoided the question right off the bat, saying no one was there to talk about his [contract.] The follow-up question was either yes or no, to which he replied: “No, that is not something that’s completed and that’s something that I’m not worried about at this time. I feel very good about where I’m at, I feel great about my relationship with President Hess and his leadership of this university. Feel great about our board and the support from the board. So, I’m not worried about that.” 

It is hard to think the administration would have Chad Weiberg hold the press conference and head up the head coaching search if a contract extension wasn’t either in the works or soon-to-be announced.

There’s so much more about this news and press conference to unpack and discussed, which will be done in the coming days. We’ll also be going through and putting up head coach hot boards here on Pokes Report, because one of the more important things Weiberg talked about was how important the timeline of the coaching search is now that the administration has at least two extra months.