The 2024 college football season has not been kind to Mike Gundy and the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Despite returning virtually everyone from a 10-win team a season ago, the Pokes have put together a 3-7 record — 0-7 in Big 12 play — through 10 games.
The challenges and issues that Gundy’s team has had to deal with this year haven’t been limited to either side of the football, as both the offense and defense have been among the worst units in the Big 12, respectively.
As one of the two winningest programs in Big 12 history, the standard in Stillwater is higher than what OSU fans have seen this year, and there is clearly a need for change.
It doesn’t appear that Gundy is ready to discuss making changes yet, however. During his Monday press conference, Gundy says he “hasn’t thought” about making changes to his staff at this point.
“I haven’t thought about any of that,” Gundy said. “The thing that we as a staff are trying to get accomplished is we have a good class of high school players that we want to be the next group for 2025. There’s a lot of opinions going around that we think that that’s important to continue the core values.
“You have the uncertainty of what the portal will bring you or take away from you in December. So you can have some broad thought but to get into real detail now would be a little uncertain from the standpoint of we really don’t know. We just have to wait and see what happens. I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of clarity on Dec. 4-6.”
That’s a trend in the Gundy era, too, as he’s been hesitant to make changes to his staff since the beginning of his tenure.
After a successful season in 2023, defensive coordinator Bryan Nardo’s reputation in Stillwater has quickly gone south as the Cowboys rank 133rd in total defense in 2024.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Casey Dunn has been in his current position since 2020 and has been on staff for 14 seasons. Unfortunately, since he became the Pokes’ playcaller, Dunn has been a lightning rod for the OSU fan base.
Given how disastrous the 2024 season has been, there are almost guaranteed to be changes made at the coordinator positions in Stillwater. But it appears that everything has its own timeline, and for now, Gundy isn’t ready to have that discussion.
