Bill Haisten: Expecting an eventful first month of Mike Gundy’s 33rd OSU offseason
- Bill Haisten
- Dec 31, 2022 Updated 4 hrs ago
Because he exercises every day and has a youthful appearance, it’s easy to forget that Mike Gundy is 54 years old.
Gundy today is three months older than Eddie Sutton was in April 1990 — when Sutton became Oklahoma State’s basketball coach.
Gundy today is seven years older than Pat Jones was in December 1994 — when Jones resigned from his position as the OSU football coach.
Gundy today is two years older than Oklahoma State wrestling legend Ed Gallagher was when Gallagher died in 1940, after a Colorado hunting trip.
Gundy today is only three years younger than Mike Holder was in September 2005, when Holder moved from Karsten Creek to the OSU athletic director’s office.
Combining his time as a Cowboy quarterback, assistant coach and head coach, Gundy has been an Oklahoma State football figure for nearly as much time (32 seasons) as Henry Iba coached the OSU basketball program (35 seasons).
The point is, Gundy has been a fixture during the lives of Oklahoma State alumni and fans, and by now those people should be accustomed to the rhythm of their relationship with the Cowboys’ head football coach: there are beautiful peaks and maddening valleys.
“Valley” is a relative term because 17 consecutive Gundy teams have finished with a winning record. Before Gundy became the head man, OSU had real valleys. In 69 seasons after the end of World War II and before he came the head coach, 34 Cowboy football teams closed with a losing record.
The 2022 season ended with a 24-17 loss to Wisconsin, with a 7-6 Cowboy record (after OSU had been 6-1) and with a Guaranteed Rate Bowl postgame news conference that wasn’t a shining moment for the program.
Only minutes after the game, Marshall Scott of Pistols Firing asked about the possibility of staff changes.
Gundy had the option of saying, “We’re not talking about that. Goodnight, everyone.”
Instead, Gundy replied with this: “You think I would tell you if I was going to make staff changes? … I might have to cut you out.”
Presumably, it was a threat to strip Scott of his credential to cover OSU football.
Gundy: “Don’t be an ass. Those are (assistant coaches’) lives, man. These are people’s families, right? Don’t mess with people’s families. Let’s do this the right way. … It’s not fair to people’s families, man. I’m not mad about the game. I just don’t like ignorance.”
And with that, the news conference was concluded.
The possibility of staff changes — is it a legitimate topic? Yes.
Was that setting the right setting for that question? Before Gundy had a few more minutes to decompress from a stressful fourth quarter?
I’m not going to judge Marshall Scott for asking a tough question. Some media members never ask tough questions. I wasn’t at Chase Field that night. I would not have asked that question in that moment, but I would have followed Gundy down the hall and attempted to get some additional Q&A time, during which I would have asked about staff possibilities over the next couple of weeks.
I may have gotten the same response that Marshall Scott did, but I believe the chances of scoring useful information would have been better in a quiet-voices, one-on-one exchange than in a crowded room with hot microphones — and with a coach trying to process the disappointment of a season that unraveled. I’ve had tons of walkaway talks with Gundy and the results typically were pretty good.
Even after his 2007 “I’m a man! I’m 40!” moment, I followed him through the Gallagher-Iba Arena museum to ask questions about that dramatic victory over Texas Tech. The game itself wasn’t mentioned during his postgame monologue. Gundy had cooled off by then and complied, talking at length about the 49-45 Cowboy win.
How times have changed. Boone Pickens Stadium attendance that day amounted to only 37,850. This qualifies as a Gundy-area peak: the elevation of OSU to a consistent 50,000-plus on home-game attendance.
Because the 2021 Cowboys were 12-2 and because Spencer Sanders would return for another run at QB, there was a 2022 season-ticket sales total of better than 45,000. There were sellouts for the Texas Tech, Texas and Iowa State games.
As the head coach, Gundy is directly responsible for the performance of his team and, by extension, responsible for attendance. Football ticket money is essential for the entire athletic department.
Gundy has a brotherhood with his assistant coaches and also has an obligation to the fan base: doing whatever is best for program.
Middle-class families pay a lot of money for season tickets. With OSU’s athletics budget having doubled since 2009-10, the tickets will remain expensive.
When fans feel good about the quarterback position and the program as a whole, it impacts season-ticket sales. Some of the better sales years were 2009 (when Zac Robinson was a senior star and as Boone Pickens Stadium finally was totally renovated), 2011 (after Brandon Weeden had been great in 2010) and 2015-17 (the Mason Rudolph-James Washington seasons).
In 2020, with Sanders as a sophomore and with Tylan Wallace and Chuba Hubbard deciding to stay, OSU might have sold 50,000 season tickets. COVID-19 happened.
From the OSU offensive line, there hasn’t been positive consistency over the last nine seasons. Sanders is in the transfer portal. Several additional Cowboys have left the program.
Seven portal newcomers arrive soon in Stillwater, but none of them is a quarterback. First-year freshman Garret Rangel — 14-of-31 against Wisconsin but an effective playmaker during the fourth period — and incoming freshman Zane Flores currently are the only scholarship QBs on the roster. Redshirt freshman Gunnar Gundy is a walk-on.
If Mike Gundy is destined to sign a veteran portal quarterback, it surely would happen within the next few days.
Seven assistants have been on the current staff for at least six years. It’s an uncommon depth of continuity. Gundy is loyal to staff members he likes, but he also made significant changes over the years.
After a disappointing 2009 season (before which OSU was expected to contend for a BCS Championship berth), the Cowboy program needed a shake-up change. Gundy hired an agent of change — offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen.
Marshall Scott asked about possible staff changes after it had been a common conversation subject for weeks. Gundy didn’t like the question, but he knows what OSU football looks like when it’s at its best and he has a history of addressing issues.
We’ll see whether the heavier news is on the staff side or the portal QB side of the possibilities, but I bet January is an eventful first month of Gundy’s 33rd Oklahoma State football offseason.
