The financial disparity between college football teams is often glaring in non-conference play, when power conference programs pay Group of 6 and FCS opponents for the privilege of a lopsided home game. However, the discussion this week is about the gap between a pair of Power 4 schools.
Ahead of Oklahoma State’s road trip to top-10 Oregon on Saturday, Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy spoke about the resource advantage the Ducks will have on the field. On his weekly radio show, Gundy said Oklahoma State “spent around $7 million” on its roster over the last three seasons combined, presumably in name, image and likeness funds prior to the start of direct revenue sharing this season.
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“I think Oregon spent around $40 (million) last year alone. That was just one year,” Gundy added. “Now, I might be off a few million, (but) what I’m saying is, they’re spending a lot of money.”
The $40 million estimation might be off by more than “a few million” — last summer, Nebraska athletic director and former Washington AD Troy Dannen claimed that Oregon’s NIL budget was $23 million — but the Ducks were believed to have one of the highest NIL spends in the country.
Regardless of the exact figures, Gundy highlighted the imbalance between the two teams that will square off this weekend.
“They’ve invested. Obviously, Phil Knight, the CEO and owner of Nike, is supporting them in a big way,” Gundy said. “They’ve got a lot of resources. They spend a lot of money. But they’re a good team.”
Oregon coach Dan Lanning responded at his weekly news conference on Monday, saying, “If you want to be a top-10 team in college football, you better be invested in winning. We spend to win. Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t.”
Oklahoma State famously had its own mega-booster in the late T. Boone Pickens, who donated more than $300 million to Cowboys athletics over the years, albeit before the onset of NIL compensation. Pickens died in 2019.
The home-and-home series between Oregon and Oklahoma State was announced in 2018, with the Ducks scheduled to play the return trip in Stillwater, Okla., in September 2026. When asked on his radio show if Gundy would schedule such a series now after seeing the impact of NIL in recent years, he said that coaches across the sport have suggested finances should influence non-conference scheduling.
“What I hear, chatter from coaches from around the country, is that nonconference scheduling, and I never thought anybody would ever say this, should be based on the financial situation for each school,” said Gundy. “From a nonconference standpoint, there are coaches saying (Oregon) should play teams that are spending the same amount of money.”
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Both teams are coming off comfortable victories over FCS opponents in Week 1, with Oregon winning 59-13 over Montana State and Oklahoma State defeating UT Martin 27-7.
“Ultimately, (Gundy) is a great coach, they’ve done an unbelievable job, but I want to be a team that is competing at the highest level. We’re really fortunate to be in that situation,” Lanning said. “I can’t speak on their situation, I have no idea what they’ve 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.”
Oregon is coming off a 13-1 record and Big Ten championship under Lanning last season, which ended with a College Football Playoff loss to eventual champion Ohio State. Oklahoma State had its worst season of Gundy’s 20-year career in 2024; the Cowboys finished 3-9 overall, winless and in last place in the Big 12, snapping a streak of 18 straight seasons with a bowl game. Gundy agreed to a restructured contract in December that reduced his salary by $1 million, and then overhauled his staff and roster for 2025, bringing in 65 new players and a dozen new assistants.
Amid the budgetary back-and-forth, both coaches expressed respect for one another ahead of Saturday’s matchup (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS), which will be the second meeting between the two programs. Oregon previously defeated Oklahoma State, 42-31, in the 2008 Holiday Bowl.
“For us, what we do is we have a great group of young men who we get ready, coach them, love them, get them to play hard and go out and compete,” said Gundy.
(Photo: Nathan J. Fish / USA Todayvia Imagn Images)
