STILLWATER — Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy characterized the weeks after his team’s dismal season ended as “the most difficult December in my career,” but continued to explain that his commitment to Cowboy football is stronger than ever.
Gundy spoke to the media Thursday, his first such appearance since the Cowboys’ season-ending loss at Colorado that concluded a 3-9 season, the worst in Gundy’s 20-year tenure.
Since then, he changed his entire coaching staff and recruited 23 players out of the transfer portal to give his program some version of a fresh start in 2025.
“The season that we had last year is not going to sit well with me,” Gundy said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to be the head coach here a long time, and we had a season that we didn’t like. But maybe sometimes that’s going to happen. So my message to (the fans) is that there’s a tremendous amount of commitment in our organization, and it starts at the very top.”
More: How pivotal is 2025 for OU, OSU football? Make or break for Brent Venables, Mike Gundy
Gundy, in working with president Kayse Shrum and athletic director Chad Weiberg, restructured his contract in December after a public battle initiated by the Oklahoma A&M Board of Regents the week after the season.
Shrum and Weiberg were part of the special meeting held by the regents that discussed Gundy’s status with the program, but Gundy never met directly with any regents.
Instead, he, Shrum and Weiberg went to work that day planning a better path forward.
“Dr. Shrum and Chad and I had really good conversations about the future, about the portal, about NIL, about revenue sharing, things that are very important in dealing with college athletics today,” Gundy said. “And it gave me an opportunity to be a part of the future. Times are changing. We all know that, and so it really gave us a chance to visit and look to the future and what’s best for our athletic department and with me, obviously, particularly football.”
Gundy’s restructured contract will allow for additional funding to be moved toward revenue sharing, with OSU administrators knowing they must find significant additional funding to meet the needs of the new world of college athletics.
“It also gave me a chance to give back to NIL,” Gundy said, referencing his amended contract. “I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I know how important NIL is right now. Whether we like it or not, we need NIL funds. We need fans. We need to sell tickets. We need the stadium to be full. All those things are very important.”
Here are a few more takeaways from the news conference:
More: Oklahoma State football announces finalized coaching staff: See the full list
Continuity undergoes change, too
Gundy has never faced this kind of turnover on his coaching staff in a single season. In fact, there might not be a Division I football coach that has ever let his entire staff of coordinators and position coaches go in one offseason.
Gundy built his program to the highest level with continuity, but that, in its past form, is gone.
Yet the coach says he has seen a different kind of continuity form in its place. In clearing the staff, Gundy allowed new coordinators Todd Grantham and Doug Meacham to be fully involved in hiring their position coaches.
“I think allowing them to bring coaches in that understood their system will help with that continuity,” Gundy said. “So Coach Grantham had a number of guys he wanted to bring with him. So that continuity that you guys are referring to kind of already was ready defensively. Meach had guys that he wanted to bring and it wasn’t a 100% clean sweep like it was defensively, but the majority of his staff are guys that he wanted in that room also.
The coordinators wanted to hire people that understood their system and were comfortable with their language. It was more of that than it was me saying I don’t want these guys.
“They understand the terminology and it should reduce the amount of time it takes for the staff to get on the same page because I think the quicker they get on the same page, they’ll be able to get the information to the players.
More: Oklahoma State football’s spring roster set with 105-player limit expected
Meacham discusses quarterback room
The most pressing question for MEacham as he builds his offense this spring will be identifying a starting quarterback.
Three returners — redshirt junior Garret Rangel, redshirt sophomore Zane Flores and redshirt freshman Maealiuaki Smith — are joined by transfer Hauss Hejny, who spent last season at TCU with Meacham.
“We’ve met them, talked to them,” Meacham said of the quarterbacks. “There’s not a ton of film on any of them particularly, so it’s gonna be fun to watch it sort itself out.”
Looking back at Meacham’s past success as an offensive coordinator, his best years were at TCU with mobile quarterbacks Trevone Boykin, Kenny Hill and Max Duggan. But he says he isn’t locked into one type of style of quarterback.
“If you have a pocket guy, you gotta have that one receiver that can make it happen,” Meacham said, referencing the famous OSU duo of quarterback Brandon Weeden and receiver Justin Blackmon. “If you’re not particularly dominant in that area, you’d probably like a guy that can move around a little bit. And if you’ve got both, that’s lightning in a bottle.”
Meacham says all four quarterbacks will go into spring on an even playing field to battle for the job, despite his history with Hejny.
“He didn’t play much last year, so we’re gonna have to figure ol’ Hauss out,” Meacham said. “I saw what he did at practice and stuff, but he didn’t play much.
“I don’t see him any different than the rest of the guys.”
Grantham’s NFL experience helped build roster
Having spent more than a decade coaching in the NFL, including a stint as a defensive coordinator, Grantham has a deep understanding of how a professional organization must build a roster.
With the direction college football is going, particularly with the 105-player roster limit that is expected for the 2025 season, roster construction is going to follow the NFL model more significantly.
Even in his few weeks on the job, Grantham believes his NFL experience has paid off.
“I actually thought it helped us in this past portal,” Grantham said. “I tried to watch all the guys that are coming back and kind of have a feel for them. To me, it’s always about a vision for each player.
“Then it got into looking at the players that were available and trying to have a vision for how they would fit our scheme. And sometimes, those guys can play more than one spot. So I do feel like the transition in the portal, and my experiences in pro football, really allowed us to build the roster, to give us some flexibility.”
While signs from the roster suggest Grantham’s scheme will be based in a 4-2-5 scheme, Grantham says flexibility is the key to what he wants to do.
Spring finale will return
Because of construction at Boone Pickens Stadium the past two offseasons, OSU has not held any public event at the end of spring football practice, as is common across the country.
But Gundy says an event of some kind will return on April 19.
“It’s early in preparation, but we’re planning on having 30 minutes or so of fan access before the practice, and then 30 minutes or so afterward.
“Give the fans a chance to see some of the new players, get a chance to see some of the coaches on the field. So we got a lot of things scheduled. Looking forward to it.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Mike Gundy addresses contract, Oklahoma State football offeseason
