Sign recruits, hire a coordinator, plan Fiesta Bowl: OSU football coach Mike Gundy has plenty on his plate
Scott WrightOklahoman
STILLWATER — Mike Gundy and the Oklahoma State football program have some pressing needs at hand.
The early signing period, when Gundy expects to have the vast majority of his recruiting class signed, opens Wednesday. And the Cowboys are still without a defensive coordinator.
With the Fiesta Bowl matchup against Notre Dame less than three weeks away — set for Jan. 1 in Glendale, Arizona — the Cowboys have their work laid out for them.
Here’s a look at the most important focal points of the next three weeks for OSU football:
Solidify recruiting class
We’re coming down to the wire, with the signing period opening on Wednesday. The Cowboys have 16 players committed, and at the most, will only add one or two more, depending on how some situations play out.The top focus in the last days of the recruiting cycle is on the defensive line. The Cowboys are in the mix for Choctaw standout Desean Brown, and they’re in the top five for massive defensive tackle Enyce Sledge of Neville High School in Monroe, Louisiana.
Sledge, a 6-foot-3, 315-pound tackle, was committed to Baylor until about a month ago. He will announce his decision on Tuesday, picking between OSU, Baylor, Auburn, Indiana and Texas Tech.
The 6-foot-4, 255-pound Brown is a four-star defensive end with plenty of offers, including a recent offer from OU.
The Cowboys took a big step in their defensive recruiting with Saturday’s commitment from Xavier Benson, a former Texas Tech linebacker who spent the 2021 season at Tyler (Texas) Junior College. The 6-foot-3, 211-pound Benson had 120 tackles in 12 games this season.
Finalize staff decisions
Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is off to Ohio State, and the decision has been made that he will not coach in the bowl game. That means Gundy — internally — has determined what his coaching staff will look like for the Fiesta Bowl, though he hasn’t made those plans public yet.More importantly for the long term, Gundy must decide which direction to go with his defensive coordinator position. It’s likely that he could promote from within, with defensive line coach Joe Bob Clements being the assistant at the front of the line.
Clements has been on staff since 2013, and when Gundy hired Knowles in 2018, he considered Clements a good option as a defensive coordinator. But the timing wasn’t right. Gundy had just parted ways with coordinator Glenn Spencer, and promoting from within after dismissing a coach wasn’t the right move.
This time around, Clements is sure to get a good look, especially considering that it would allow the defense to maintain the schemes it has built over the past four years. Knowles was the mastermind of the defense, but all the coaches had input into creating what it became.
On top of that, the personnel the Cowboys have recruited fit the blended schemes of the 3-3 and the 4-2-5 defenses OSU uses.
If Clements is promoted, Gundy would need to hire someone to coach linebackers, and he’d likely have a plethora of options.
Prepare for transfer season
Players are already hitting the transfer portal at an alarming pace. Oklahoma State, so far, has lost only one player to the portal, offensive lineman Hunter Anthony. But Gundy has been saying for weeks that he and his staff are holding back a few scholarship spots for portal transfers coming in — something they’ve never done before.That means once the recruiting class is wrapped up, the staff will go to work looking to fill remaining holes with transfers. The Cowboys could look for some offensive linemen or linebackers to bring a veteran presence to those units.
Or they could go a completely unexpected direction if they find someone who will be a good fit for the program.
A year ago at this time, no one was talking about OSU’s need for a running back, yet they added Jaylen Warren as a transfer from Utah State, and he became one of the most valuable offensive pieces of the team this season.
Get ready for Notre Dame
Oh yeah, there’s a game to prepare for, amid all this other madness.The Cowboys have a chance to earn their second 12-win season in school history, matching the win total of the 2011 squad, which went 12-1 and won the Fiesta Bowl over Stanford.
This has been a great season for OSU, despite coming up just short of a Big 12 championship and a shot at the College Football Playoff. The season still deserves a strong finish in the Fiesta Bowl.
