In 2007 Oklahoma State football coach, Mike Gundy had one of the most famous rants in the sports world at his daily press conference, where the rant went on for three minutes and the words "Come after me, I'M A MAN1 I'M 40!' where spoken. There was a lot that happened leading up to that and a lot more in the aftermath. This story takes a crazy turn including the player that Gundy stood up for coming out saying that the rant "basically ended my life."
Mike Gundy is the face of Oklahoma football, we can talk about him and how he dominated for the Cowboys as their starting quarterback in the late 1980s or how in 2017 he showed up rocking a mullet during the "First Take." Gundy is known for his quirks and antics, but among his headline making moments, nothing quite compares to what happened on September 22, 2007.
It was Mike Gundy's third season as he took over for Les Miles who have left for LSU. After dealing with an injury at quarterback and a rough first season, he was able to turn it round in 2006. Then after starting 2007 poorly, his starting quarter back, Bobby Reed did not play well, with that Gundy announced the change to Zack Robinson at quarterback which was a very surprising moves after just two games. A lot of people where left scratching their ends wondering why, a local sports columnist by the name Jenni Carlson picked up on the story and wrote a vey bold column on Bobby Reed. In the column it was suggested that the kids attuite got him sidelined and a lot of ways she said things were pretty shocking and seemed to proses a lot of information from an insider source as it said that the coaches stated "The kid was scared" "His mother was feeding him chicken" and that "He was going to transfer when he found out he had to compete for his starting job" at most though, these where just vague rumors that a columnist wrote up as if they were facts, cheap shots.
When someone showed Gundy the newspaper he was taken back by what he had read. The daily press conference took place where Gundy stated while yelling "YOU WANNA GO AFTER AN ATHLETET, ONE OF MY ATHLEATES, YOU GO AFTER ONE WHO DOES'NT DO THE RIGHT THINGS YOU DONT DOWNGRADE HIM BECAUSE HE DOES EVERYTHING RIGHT AND MAY NOT PLAY AS WELL ON SATURDAY" "You let US make that decision" "The editor who let that come out is GARBAGE" Then Mike Gundy spoke the most famous line in the college sports world "Come after me, I'M A MAN! I'M 40!"
This rant went viral, making its way to every major news outlet and sports show. The local news caught up with Jenni Carlson where she completely defended her article saying that it was based off facts. While their seems to be two sides for this, everyone has seemed to forget why this even happened in the first place, QB Bobby Reed.
When Reed heard about the rant he was offended by what the coach said as he said he felt shock a betrayal. Bobby was dubbed the next Vince Young in High School and when you watch him play, he looks a lot like him, he was going to change Oklahoma football. One problem arose though, he broke his shoulder his freshman year. When Les Miles left for LSU Bobby wanted to go with him, but Gundy convinced him to stay by saying "You're the future of the program son."
Bobby kept getting hit by the injury bug, but overall in his second season he did what was a Tom Brady kind of job. He would end up being replaced by Zack Robinson though as the coaches decided that he can fit the offensive scheme better.
In the final game against state rival Oklahoma, Reed was excided, but when he saw the game plan that had both Reed and Robinson being switched out throughout the game he was furious. An upset win to end the season did sound good though.
Late in the fourth quarter both quarterbacks have played about the same amount of snaps. Robinson completing less then 50% of his passes with no touchdowns and while Bobby produced two touchdowns. Robinson would later lose the game, but even with that Zack was named starter.
Bobby would then wake up the next day to the rant, he would later transfer to Texas State.