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OSU FOOTBALL
For a generation, Stillwater, America, has been home to one of college football’s most consistent cultures.
Twenty years of Mike Gundy as coach. Staff continuity that is remarkable in this transient age of American life. In 2024, OSU’s staff included five assistant coaches with double-digit Cowboy seasons, plus strength/conditioning czar Rob Glass, who has ridden shotgun with Gundy for all 20 years.
The stability is over. The continuity is gone. A program transformation is underway, as close to a total teardown as possible without changing head coaches.
OSU almost did that, too. Only a week ago did we finally learn that Gundy would return for a 21st season, after agreeing to contract concessions and removal of his imperial status.
But the Cowboys forge ahead with a turned-over roster that figures to sport no more than 14-16 members of its previous two-deep lineup, and in all likelihood NO returning assistant coaches.
This isn’t “All in the Family” becoming “Archie Bunker’s Place.” This is Carroll O’Connor going from Queens bartender to police chief in Sparta, Mississippi.
This Cowboy makeover is French Revolution stuff, without executing King Louis the 16th. Gundy is not going to the guillotine; at least not now.
Gundy survived the purge of OSU’s regents and emerged to hire two new coordinators: Todd Grantham on defense and familiar face Doug Meacham on offense.
Gundy went Old School with the hires: Grantham is 58; Meacham is 60.
That flies in the face of the latest gridiron trend, of hiring whippersnappers as coordinators. Down in Norman, Brent Venables has hired two coordinators this calendar year, and they, too, are 60. Combined: 29-year-old Ben Arbuckle and 31-year-old Zac Alley.
Grantham, late of the New Orleans Saints, mostly is known as an 11-year coordinator at some serious college football enclaves. Georgia, Louisville, Mississippi State and Florida.
Grantham’s Southeastern Conference defenses weren’t bad; his record in SEC games is 47-27. That will play. But he’s also got the reputation as a hothead.
Grantham got into a postgame shouting match with then-Vanderbilt coach James Franklin in 2011, which frankly a lot of people want to do, but also infamously gave the choke sign to kicker Chas Henry in the closing seconds of the 2010 Florida-Georgia game. Didn’t work; Henry nailed the field goal and the Gators beat Grantham’s Bulldogs.
Unlike Grantham, Meacham has deep OSU ties. He was a Cowboy offensive lineman in the 1980s, then an eight-year Gundy assistant (2005-12).
When Gundy needed an offensive coordinator and hired Mike Yurcich from Shippensburg in 2013, Meacham figured it was time to move on and so began an odyssey.
Houston to Texas Christian to Kansas and back to TCU. Meacham was offensive coordinator in four seasons over three schools.
2013 Houston was a reasonably successful offense. The Cougars didn’t have a big-time quarterback (John O’Korn) but averaged 33.2 points.
Kansas in 2017 fielded its typical inept offense (think Sooners, 2024) but in 2018 had its best offense in almost a decade.
TCU’s 2021 offense was not very good at all, Meacham was demoted and the Horned Frogs in 2022 soared to the national championship game.
So I don’t know what to make of the hires. I just know that Gundy apparently has hired these guys with carte blanche to remake the staffs.
Meacham “will put together an offensive staff that will provide firepower and be fun to watch,” Gundy said in a statement announcing Meacham’s hiring.
The first reported offensive hiring is quarterbacks coach Kevin Johns, late of OU, who made his name at Duke.
Meanwhile, Grantham already has virtually remade the defensive staff, with three hires: East Carolina’s Jules Montinar (defensive backs), Charlotte’s Ryan Osborn (defensive line) and Western Kentucky’s Kap Dede (linebackers).
An OSU source said the previous defensive staff is on its way out and “looks like offense is moving that way, too. I knew there was going to be some changes, but I am somewhat surprised that the entire staff has gotten wiped out.”
Frankly, this might be unprecedented. An entire coaching staff makeover, sans the head coach. Sort of the neutron bomb effect. I’ve never heard of a head coach cleaning house that completely.
Of course, sometimes, continuity can lead to stagnation. Consistency in staff can lead to complacency.
Some have accused Gundy of that, and they might have something, but the staff could be culpable, too.
Among the coaches on the 2024 OSU staff were Kasey Dunn (offensive coordinator, 14 years with Gundy); Joe Bob Clements (linebackers, 12); Tim Duffie (cornerbacks, 12); Dan Hammerschmidt (safeties, 10); Jasen McEndoo (tight ends, 10); John Wozniak (running backs, eight); and Rob Glass (strength and conditioning, 20).
That reads like those old Nebraska staffs of Tom Osborne.
Some new blood can’t hurt. And it’s not like the Cowboy players will be hampered adjusting to new coaches. With so many new players headed for this roster, every day was going to be meet-and-greet for the longest of times anyway.
Put it all together, and the only thing we’ll recognize of OSU football 2025 will be Pistol Pete, the mix-and-match orange and black, Bullet and the Mullet.
The first three are Stillwater staples. So is the latter, Gundy. But he’s not untouchable. Not after a transformation that leaves one of college football’s most stable programs almost unrecognizable.
OSU FOOTBALL
Berry Tramel: OSU football makeover, from players to coaches, is unprecedented
- Dec 14, 2024 Updated 11 hrs ago
Berry Tramel
Sports ColumnistFor a generation, Stillwater, America, has been home to one of college football’s most consistent cultures.
Twenty years of Mike Gundy as coach. Staff continuity that is remarkable in this transient age of American life. In 2024, OSU’s staff included five assistant coaches with double-digit Cowboy seasons, plus strength/conditioning czar Rob Glass, who has ridden shotgun with Gundy for all 20 years.
The stability is over. The continuity is gone. A program transformation is underway, as close to a total teardown as possible without changing head coaches.
OSU almost did that, too. Only a week ago did we finally learn that Gundy would return for a 21st season, after agreeing to contract concessions and removal of his imperial status.
But the Cowboys forge ahead with a turned-over roster that figures to sport no more than 14-16 members of its previous two-deep lineup, and in all likelihood NO returning assistant coaches.
This isn’t “All in the Family” becoming “Archie Bunker’s Place.” This is Carroll O’Connor going from Queens bartender to police chief in Sparta, Mississippi.
This Cowboy makeover is French Revolution stuff, without executing King Louis the 16th. Gundy is not going to the guillotine; at least not now.
Gundy survived the purge of OSU’s regents and emerged to hire two new coordinators: Todd Grantham on defense and familiar face Doug Meacham on offense.
Gundy went Old School with the hires: Grantham is 58; Meacham is 60.
That flies in the face of the latest gridiron trend, of hiring whippersnappers as coordinators. Down in Norman, Brent Venables has hired two coordinators this calendar year, and they, too, are 60. Combined: 29-year-old Ben Arbuckle and 31-year-old Zac Alley.
Grantham, late of the New Orleans Saints, mostly is known as an 11-year coordinator at some serious college football enclaves. Georgia, Louisville, Mississippi State and Florida.
Grantham’s Southeastern Conference defenses weren’t bad; his record in SEC games is 47-27. That will play. But he’s also got the reputation as a hothead.
Grantham got into a postgame shouting match with then-Vanderbilt coach James Franklin in 2011, which frankly a lot of people want to do, but also infamously gave the choke sign to kicker Chas Henry in the closing seconds of the 2010 Florida-Georgia game. Didn’t work; Henry nailed the field goal and the Gators beat Grantham’s Bulldogs.
Unlike Grantham, Meacham has deep OSU ties. He was a Cowboy offensive lineman in the 1980s, then an eight-year Gundy assistant (2005-12).
When Gundy needed an offensive coordinator and hired Mike Yurcich from Shippensburg in 2013, Meacham figured it was time to move on and so began an odyssey.
Houston to Texas Christian to Kansas and back to TCU. Meacham was offensive coordinator in four seasons over three schools.
2013 Houston was a reasonably successful offense. The Cougars didn’t have a big-time quarterback (John O’Korn) but averaged 33.2 points.
Kansas in 2017 fielded its typical inept offense (think Sooners, 2024) but in 2018 had its best offense in almost a decade.
TCU’s 2021 offense was not very good at all, Meacham was demoted and the Horned Frogs in 2022 soared to the national championship game.
So I don’t know what to make of the hires. I just know that Gundy apparently has hired these guys with carte blanche to remake the staffs.
Meacham “will put together an offensive staff that will provide firepower and be fun to watch,” Gundy said in a statement announcing Meacham’s hiring.
The first reported offensive hiring is quarterbacks coach Kevin Johns, late of OU, who made his name at Duke.
Meanwhile, Grantham already has virtually remade the defensive staff, with three hires: East Carolina’s Jules Montinar (defensive backs), Charlotte’s Ryan Osborn (defensive line) and Western Kentucky’s Kap Dede (linebackers).
An OSU source said the previous defensive staff is on its way out and “looks like offense is moving that way, too. I knew there was going to be some changes, but I am somewhat surprised that the entire staff has gotten wiped out.”
Frankly, this might be unprecedented. An entire coaching staff makeover, sans the head coach. Sort of the neutron bomb effect. I’ve never heard of a head coach cleaning house that completely.
Of course, sometimes, continuity can lead to stagnation. Consistency in staff can lead to complacency.
Some have accused Gundy of that, and they might have something, but the staff could be culpable, too.
Among the coaches on the 2024 OSU staff were Kasey Dunn (offensive coordinator, 14 years with Gundy); Joe Bob Clements (linebackers, 12); Tim Duffie (cornerbacks, 12); Dan Hammerschmidt (safeties, 10); Jasen McEndoo (tight ends, 10); John Wozniak (running backs, eight); and Rob Glass (strength and conditioning, 20).
That reads like those old Nebraska staffs of Tom Osborne.
Some new blood can’t hurt. And it’s not like the Cowboy players will be hampered adjusting to new coaches. With so many new players headed for this roster, every day was going to be meet-and-greet for the longest of times anyway.
Put it all together, and the only thing we’ll recognize of OSU football 2025 will be Pistol Pete, the mix-and-match orange and black, Bullet and the Mullet.
The first three are Stillwater staples. So is the latter, Gundy. But he’s not untouchable. Not after a transformation that leaves one of college football’s most stable programs almost unrecognizable.
