Oregon's Dan Lanning Not Happy With Mike Gundy's NIL Comments Ahead Of Oklahoma State Game

Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy does not seem to be a fan of programs with huge NIL budgets – particularly the team he's scheduled to play on Saturday, the Oregon Ducks. 

Earlier in the week, Gundy contrasted his Cowboys’ spending with Oregon’s, strongly implying the Ducks were buying a contending team. He told reporters he’d spent "around $7 million" on players over the last three years combined.

Oregon, he said, had spent nearly $40 million in 2024 alone.

"Oregon is paying a lot, a lot of money for their team," he said. "From a nonconference standpoint, there’s coaches saying they should play teams that are spending the same amount of money."

Well, unsurprisingly, Oregon and head coach Dan Lanning heard Gundy’s comments implying a gigantic advantage over other Power Four programs—and they weren’t pleased.

 Head coach Mike Gundy of the Oklahoma State Cowboys.  (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

Dan Lanning, Mike Gundy Going Back And Forth 

Asked about it at a news conference this week, Lanning mostly focused on his team but also took a shot at Gundy and Oklahoma State’s scheduling practices.

"Like I said, I’ve got a ton of respect for Coach Gundy," Lanning said. "Ultimately, how blessed are we being at a place that’s invested in winning. If you want to be a top 10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning and we spend to win. Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t. Ultimately, he’s a great coach that’s done an unbelievable job, but I want to be a team that’s competing at the highest level and we’re really fortunate to be in that situation. I can’t speak on their situation; I have no idea what they got in their pockets over there. I’m sure UT Martin maybe didn’t have as much as them last week, and they played. So we’ll let it play out."

Gundy’s not wrong: there is a massive disparity in NIL budgets between Oregon and almost everyone, let alone Oklahoma State. That said, the Oklahoma State program has previously benefited from the generosity of extremely wealthy alum T. Boone Pickens. The broader issue, though, is that roster disparities have always existed. Alabama has had a better roster than Purdue. Ohio State has consistently had better rosters than, say, the Cal Golden Bears. NIL has made it "easier," in theory, for richer programs to land better players. But that dynamic has been a feature of college football for decades.

For his part, Gundy told SiriusXM College Sports Radio that some implications from his comments were taken out of context.

"A little bit of that was was taken out of context," Gundy said. "The truth of the matter is, I was being very complimentary of Oregon and their commitment. The other things that had been said that day were that they made a huge commitment to facilities, as we know. They’ve made a huge commitment to their staff, they’ve made a huge commitment to their surrounding staff and then, they’ve made a huge NIL commitment."

That’s not exactly walking it back, though Gundy seems to be clarifying that the Ducks’ spending shows up in their quality. That probably won’t make Oregon or Lanning much happier.

Oregon and Oklahoma State play Saturday at 12:30 p.m. PT/3:30 p.m. ET. The postgame handshake should be interesting.