Mike Gundy, Chuba Hubbard release united video message to quell controversy

Mike Gundy and Chuba Hubbard are working together following Monday’s spat.

College football fans spat up their afternoon iced coffees Monday when Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard, the nation’s leading rusher for the 2019 season, blasted his own coach live and direct on Twitter. It came in reaction to a photo depicting Mike Gundy in a t-shirt promoting One America News Network, a far-right cable channel known for conspiracy theories and questionable journalistic practices.

Now, before the Big 12 had a chance to implode on itself, Hubbard and Gundy appeared in a conciliatory video pledging to change things for the better in Stillwater.

Oklahoma State’s Chuba Hubbard and Mike Gundy appeared together in a video Monday evening determined to effect positive change in the football program

“I was made aware of some things that players feel like could make our culture even better than it is at Oklahoma State,” Gundy said. “I’m looking forward to making some changes, and it starts at the top with me. We’ve got good days ahead.”

Added Hubbard: “I’m not someone that has to tweet something to make change. I should have went to him as a man. I’m more about action… [F]rom now on, we’re gonna focus on bringing change, because that’s the most important thing.”

It’s good to see these two finding at least modest common ground before this story spun completely out of control and gave the Oklahoma Sooners years’ worth of smack-talk fodder. But that doesn’t meant everyone’s buddy-buddy at OSU. To hear Hubbard tell it, a whole lot of careful work is still to be done.

Any player criticizing his coach so powerfully is bound to make headlines; it’s something else entirely when one of the very best returning players in college football does so to one of the game’s most visible personalities. With enough luck, we’ll be able to look back at today’s events and declare that they were necessary to kick-start a long-overdue period of self-evaluation around Oklahoma State University.

Because if that can’t happen, the Cowboys could be in for a brutal kind of challenge this fall.