It’s funny how fast things can change in college football. 30 days ago, Iowa State and Oklahoma State met in Stillwater on the football field. Both teams had rosters full of familiar faces, coaches calling plays they’d been calling all season, and fans who figured things would look pretty similar six weeks later. Then the transfer portal hit.
Since that game, Oklahoma State has lost 43 players to the portal. Iowa State hasn’t been far behind with 42 departures. That’s the two highest totals in the entire country. Think about that for a second. Two teams that shared the field a month ago now look entirely different because almost half of their rosters are heading out the door.
It’s one thing to lose so many players after a down year, but the reality is that both programs have brand-new head coaches, which leads to excessive roster changes. After firing Mike Gundy midseason, the Cowboys embraced a new era of football with North Texas’ Eric Morris leading the charge. For Iowa State, the cards were dealt in a different fashion, losing head coach Matt Campbell to Penn State, and scrambling to hire Jimmy Rogers.
While Oklahoma State was fully prepared for a rebuild, Iowa State was hoping to avoid one with its hire. That turned out not to be the case as the group has just 32 scholarship athletes left on the roster, many of whom have yet to see actual playing time.
Maybe this is just the new normal, but the speed at which two programs can redefine themselves in thirty days is still staggering. It’s not about the long game anymore. Program building has an entirely new process, and it’s about how fast a roster can ripple, rearrange, and reimagine itself in the portal era.
