Mike Gundy admits 2024 was the 'most difficult December in my career'

Throughout college football continuity has long since been seen as one of the keys to success for a program. Certainly, it’s been a key to the program that Mike Gundy has built over the last two decades at Oklahoma State.

However, after the worst season of his career in Stillwater by record, Gundy was forced to make some difficult challenges and, amid major roster turnover, he also made the decision to turn over the coaching staff, which made for the most difficult December in his career too. Still, Gundy isn’t nervous about that continuity being an issue, as he recently explained.

“Not really,” Mike Gundy said. “And you guys know from being around me, the very most difficult thing — this was the most difficult December in my career, because I don’t like letting people go. I don’t like affecting people’s families and kids and lifestyles. I just don’t like that.”

At 3-9 overall and 0-9 in Big 12 play, 2024 was a major disaster. That led to a contract dispute between Mike Gundy and the program, which saw a board of regents meeting that sparked speculation about his future. At the time, it was reported that Gundy himself could be fired for cause if he didn’t agree to a reworked deal. That would mean the school would forgo paying his buyout. The funds would be reallocated to NIL. However, that standoff passed with Gundy returning for the 2025 season.

Still, while Mike Gundy is returning, the staff saw that major turnover. That included not just losing both coordinators, but all of the school’s primary coaches outside of Gundy. Still, in its own way, Gundy sees the complete turnover as its own form of continuity because the staff is coming to work together.

“But in my situation, tough decisions have to be made. The continuity of college football players being in a location for the duration is a factor, and then I think allowing them to bring coaches in that understood their system will help with that continuity,” Gundy said.

“So, what I’m saying is if we hire a coordinator and we go out and start trying to find five other guys to come in with him, then we automatically don’t have any continuity. So, Coach [Todd] Grantham had a number of guys he wanted to bring with him. So that continuity that you guys are referring to kind of already was ready defensively. Now, [Doug Meacham] had guys that he wanted to bring and it wasn’t a 100 percent clean sweep like it was defensively, but the majority of his staff are guys that he wanted in that room also.”

Beyond the coaching turnover, the roster is also being turned over extensively in Stillwater. Because of that, Mike Gundy is now looking forward to the spring to see what he can expect from his team in 2025.