STILLWATER – It’s real easy. I can give you the state of Oklahoma State football as it stands right now int he 2024 season. The team is 3-6, bordering on ending any chance to continue its’ streak of bowl games and winning seasons that stretches for 18 years. This team is 0-6 in the Big 12 and all by themselves in last place in the conference. Did I expect this? No, but that is what it is. No denying. It is tough for people in the college football business.
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The results this season have not been what the program worked 365 days to achieve.
This business is a 365 days a year process. You work all year as a staff in assembling a roster, most of the time through recruiting although that has gradually changed since the transfer portal and is about to change even more with increased NIL and the revenue sharing (roughly $15-17 million in most Power Four programs) with the schedule May final settlement of the House vs. NCAA class-action lawsuit. That will bring the 105 roster limit for football. You work on offensive and defensive systems and schemes. The players work on strength, speed, and conditioning. You practice and prepare for the season.
“As a staff, we want to put our players in the best position based on who have available,” head coach Mike Gundy repeated in his Zoom press conference today.
Gundy never holds back. His people in the athletic department sometimes wish he would, Gundy’s frank way of communication has been known to rub people the wrong way. He held back nothing when asked about dealing with the outside criticism, which is raging with each loss.
Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
Gundy has been fighting every step of the way this season..
“Unfortunately in life, most people are weak and as soon as things start to go not as good as what they thought they fall apart and panic,” Gundy explained. “They start to point the finger at people. You see it everyday in all walks of life. That is why I refuse to watch TV and watch the news because I get tired of people bitching and complaining about this and that instead of just doing something about it and trying to make it better. That is what happens in college athletics. It’s just on the bigger stage and in most cases the people bitching and complaining are the same ones that can’t pay their own bills.”
Gundy kept going, but all that does is deflect from what he said that I thought was really important to the future of the Oklahoma State football. First, I’m going to clear up recent rumors. Gundy is not packing up his office. I promise that when Mike Gundy gives up the reigns of Cowboy football it won’t be after a season like this, even if his team found a way to win the last three games and continue the bowl streak. Gundy will turn the program over in good condition, better than he found it. He believes in that.
“What we try to do, as I mention to the team all the time, is the most important thing you can do in life is to make sure you are maximizing your opportunity to be the best person you can be and the best you can be at whatever it is that you do,” Gundy also threw out on the Zoom conference.
Gundy talked about the future, talked about how college football’s days of amatuerism are long gone. This is a professional sport, players will move to where they get paid. His staff, primarily scouting, recruiting, and roster building staff have been hard at work preparing for the upcoming months of adding recruits and more important adding portal acquisitions. There will be monetary values placed on all players. The overall staff will have to decide who is kept and who will have to go as the current roster of 142 will have to be shrunk far beyond the players that have exhausted their eligibility.
Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
This is a promise. Next season’s roster will have somewhere between 40 percent to 60 percent change to it.
“What is important for all of the Oklahoma State fans to know is that we are very aware of what is going on” Gundy made clear. “At some point in life we have to put trust into somebody and I think they need to trust that we have a good plan for whats going on here for the big picture. We have answers and sometimes they might not be short term, sometimes they may be long term answers. Secondly, in the end the very best thing peolpe can do, I tell our players, is 100 percent buy in. You have to be on somebody’s team. You can’t go through life by yourself. Those are long answers and a very broad picture for how we hold ourselves accountable.”
Gundy mentioned many times that the total number in football at Oklahoma State is 212. That means 70 staffers beyond players. Right now, every one of those staffers had best be following the guideline of maximizing what it is they are supposed to do.
I would say that is pretty important for now, the final three games, and the immediate and long-term future.
