This was a chance to shine Jenni and you dropped the ball.

Be a strong woman, there’s still time. Don’t run for the tall grass.

The basis of Jenni’s story is not only shameless, but fabricated. Why?

Society tells me it’s “okay” to have a woman tell me about the rigors of football. I am suppose to look the other way and pretend they understand the game from a players perspective. I’m suppose to ignore the fact you never strapped on a helmet, and felt what it’s like to compete on the field. Society tells me that I have to be politically correct, and at least tolerate the clich’es that anybody can spew out if they had enough brothers around them growing up.

Well I’m sorry but not this time….

You have never earned the right to judge a football player because you don’t know what it’s like. You have not walked in a players shoes, and have never faced the types of pressures a player is under. I played, and I coached, and I know. Don’t smear the game by pretending you understand.

I don’t even care if you ARE right on your facts.

Football is a fraternity. A brotherhood. If you never played then stop writing like you know, because YOU DON’T.

Here’s an example….I will never make claims about how woman that don’t give birth naturally are “sissies”, because I don’t have the right to judge such things. Furthermore if I did make such a statement, I would be discredited immediately by every woman in the world because I don’t have a vagina.

What you did was irresponsible. You sold out this kid to get some readers.

Is this what first made you want to be a journalist? To hurt people?

Nice job. You must be very proud.

I think the vignette about mama feeding Bobby chicken was a bit much. It does seem to indicate that he’s perhaps a mama’s boy, but it might not indicate that at all, and it just seems like a low blow.

Everything else in the column is less “mean” than what has been said by hundreds of OSU fans who have called into the various sports-talk radio shows since the stinker at Georgia demanding that Bobby Reid be benched because he’s no good in big games, gets hurt too easily, isn’t mentally tough, is a quitter, etc. If it’s OK for the OSU fan-base to say these things and much worse, then why isn’t it OK for a sport columnist (not reporter–columnist) to say them?

Given all that, Mike Gundy’s response was 10 times, make that 100 times worse, more out of line, more over the top, than anything in Jenni Carlson’s column. He should have behaved like an adult, a professional, and talked to her privately, rather than making himself the laughingstock of the nation with his “I’m a man–I’m 40!” tirade.

I’m an OU fan who likes Mike Gundy. I have hoped that he would succeed in running a successful program without all the Les Miles thugs in it. I thought he was succeeding. Now I can’t figure out what he’s doing. He seems clueless on Saturdays, and now seems to be clueless about other parts of his job as well.

Too bad.