Mike Gundy: 'I still wake up in the middle of the night and football is on my mind'

Mike Gundy is a football guy and we’re unsure if anyone can dispute the Oklahoma State head coach at this point.

The 2025 season will be Gundy’s 21st season at the helm of the Cowboys and basically, he’s seen it all. He breathes football.

In fact, he thinks about football and Oklahoma state in the middle of the night, perhaps more than the normal football coach.

“But I’ve said this a number of times, I still wake up in the middle of the night and football is on my mind,” Gundy said. “Unfortunately, at my age, when I have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, walking toward the bathroom and walking back from the bathroom, football is on my mind. I wish it wasn’t, but it is. When I shower in the morning, football is on my mind. 

“So my energy and passion for where we’re at, and you guys have covered me specifically, you know, this press conference is not about me, this is about a team, and you know our future here at Oklahoma State. But you guys know that the season that we had last year is not going to sit well with me.” 

Gundy is 169-88 in his career but Oklahoma State is coming off the worst season during his tenure. A 3-9 season in 2024 was certainly questionable.

Especially considering seasons that finished 12-2 and 10-4 in 2021 and ‘23. 

“But I get it. We’re moving forward,” Gundy said. “Sometimes that happens, you know, I’ve been fortunate enough to be the head coach here a long time, and we had a season that we didn’t like, but, you know, maybe sometimes that’s going to happen. So my message to them, that was a long answer, is that there’s a tremendous amount of commitment in our organization, and it starts at the very top. And the one thing that I tried to accomplish in putting a staff together was a group of guys that had energy, passion and could give us some diversity in dealing with players in the time of college football that we’re dealing with now.”

Gundy and the Cowboys will try to resurrect the program and return to success next fall and search for that elusive Big 12 title. Oklahoma State hasn’t won the conference since 2011 and has yet to make the College Football Playoff.