Chuba Hubbard, Top-10 Heisman Favorite, Calls Out Coach Gundy for Wearing OAN Shirt

• Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard says he is going to boycott Cowboys football after seeing head coach Mike Gundy wearing an OAN t-shirt
• Hubbard led college football in rushing last season, with 2,094 rushing yards
• Hopefully Hubbard and Gundy can speak on the phone (rather than social media) and get on the same page

Oklahoma State Cowboys running back Chuba Hubbard has stated that he’s going to boycott all football activities at the school after head coach Mike Gundy was seen wearing an OAN t-shirt.

Hubbard is one of the favorites to win the 2020 Heisman Trophy. Will cooler heads prevail to keep him in the running?

2020 Heisman Trophy Odds

Odds as of June 15th.

Hubbard Upset With Gundy’s OAN T-Shirt

Twitter was ablaze on Monday afternoon after the Cowboys 2000-yard rusher retweeted a photo with the team’s head coach Mike Gundy wearing an OAN t-shirt as part of a recent fishing trip. Although OAN is a news network, which is carried by providers like Direct TV, it is viewed as being further right of FOX News on the political spectrum.

When it comes to extreme right-wing politics, there tends to be parts of the faction that are, in fact, racist and that have opposing views to what many would deem to be socially acceptable these days. For example, evangelicals tend to be on the right end of the spectrum and they tend to be more anti-LGBT.

I will not stand for this.. This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society, and it’s unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State until things CHANGE. https://t.co/psxPn4Khoq

— Chuba Hubbard (@Hubbard_RMN) June 15, 2020

At any rate, the concern here is that a number of conservatives have been against Black Lives Matter or maybe not as vocally supportive as they could be. Some of it is because they are fervent supports of the military, police and law and order, and some of it is because the race issues make them uncomfortable.

In general, OAN has been viewed as a network that supports President Donald Trump fervently and many left-leaning news outlets and pundits have viewed Trump as being racist at times. When the two are tied together, Hubbard has come to the conclusion that supporters of OAN are not people he wants to associate with.

What’s The Solution?

To be completely fair, it’s hard to brand OAN as a completely racist outlet. Are they conservative? Absolutely. Are they blatantly and outright racist? No. If that were the case, they probably would not be carried by DirectTV, Verizon Fios, AT&T U-verse, and other distributors.

•Heisman candidate RB Chuba Hubbard: Boycott until things change

•2nd-Team All-B12 LB Amen Ogbongbemiga: I stand with him!

•2x 1st-Team All-B12, current Ravens RB Justice Hill: OSU needs major change.

•2x 2nd-team All-B12, current Browns CB AJ Green: Call a spade a spade! pic.twitter.com/i3hdJFIIYa

— Thor Nystrom (@thorku) June 15, 2020

Beyond that, just because Gundy watches or supports that network doesn’t make him a racist. He’s coached many African American athletes in the past and we’ll probably get an idea of how they feel about him in the coming days. To date, though, there hasn’t been a track record of racism.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that Hubbard should be free to express his opinion and do what he wants – boycott, protest, etc. – because it’s a free country. Gundy should also be afforded that freedom too to watch whatever news he wants as well – as long as he’s not being racist or discriminating against anyone.

.@CoachGundy has every right to wear a shirt that shows a tv network's name on it. Maybe @Hubbard_RMN can get a clue and learn about the 1st Amendment if he'd like. Here's hoping the coach doesn't apologize. He did nothing wrong.

— Joe Pags Pagliarulo (@JoeTalkShow) June 15, 2020

It becomes very challenging if we start going down a path of canceling people for watching MSNBC or reading the New Yorker or Breitbart and The Blaze. Everyone is free to do what they like but the hope is that even if they watch different networks to get different news, they all still treat everyone with love and respect.

Hubbard’s Heisman Odds

At this point, Hubbard is at +2150 to win the 2020 Heisman Trophy and hopefully cooler heads can prevail. We haven’t heard from Gundy yet but he is not a big fan of Twitter and this will make him even less of a fan.

Hopefully he and Hubbard can chat on the phone and talk it out and find some common ground. It’s what the country needs.