Jan 18, 2025; Atlanta, GA, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes defensive coordinator Jim Knowles talks to the media during 2025 CFP National Championship Media Day at Georgia World Congress Center, Building A. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Even throughout Ohio State’s run to the College Football Playoff national championship, there was no shortage of buzz regarding the possibility of Oklahoma poaching Buckeyes defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.

But as of Thursday morning, Knowles remains under contract with Ohio State. Only you wouldn’t have known it based on a video created by Oklahoma’s Rivals website, OU Insider, reacting to the Sooners’ hiring of Knowles, which hasn’t actually happened yet.

In both a post on the OU Insider message board and subsequent OU Insider Live video, the website’s co-publisher, Parker Thune, admitted that the site had pre-recorded a reaction video in the event that Oklahoma did hire the former Cornell head coach as its new defensive coordinator. According to Thune, the video was only made public as the result of a loophole with YouTube’s “unlisted” setting, which the site was previously unaware of.

“Yes, there was a video that was not supposed to see the light of day — at least not when it did,” Thune said on OU Insider Live. “YouTube has a viewability loophole for unlisted videos that we have only now discovered.”

Thune added that the 12-minute reaction video didn’t include any “pertinent information” that the Sooners insiders hadn’t previously shared with their subscribers — only it was presented under the guise that Knowles’ hiring had become official. He also confirmed that Oklahoma has not, in fact, hired Knowles and that one of the realities of covering college football is that you’re effectively on the clock 24/7, thus creating the need to be as prepared as possible for such scenarios.

“By hook or by crook, that video made it’s way into the public eye,” Thune said. “I think we figured out how. It shouldn’t have happened. Obviously, nothing was official at that time. Still nothing is official. But there was a video released that proclaimed that Jim Knowles was the next DC. It was just a video that we had prepared to drop in the event that that became public. Thankfully, it was only out there for a couple of minutes… obviously, should not have happened. That goes without saying. That will never happen again.”

On the one hand, Thune is right that pre-preparing content for news before it becomes official isn’t just common in college football and sports, but within the general media. While one could argue that there’s a difference between pre-writing a boiler plate story about Knowles’ hiring and filming a video reacting to something that hasn’t actually happened yet, the reality is that plenty of content — in sports and elsewhere — gets created before news actually happens.

Conversely, if you do pre-produce content before news becomes official, you better make sure it doesn’t see the light of day until it does. Unfortunately, that’s a lesson OU Insider learned the hard way, but it’s a credit to the site and its insiders that they were willing to address the mistake head on.

About Ben Axelrod

Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.