Mike Gundy shares excitement to 'find out what we have' in spring football

By record, the 2024 season was the worst that head coach Mike Gundy has had with the Oklahoma State Cowboys. In a tenure that has now spanned two decades, Gundy is now ready to put that year behind him and move forward.

The 2025 season won’t be without its challenges for Gundy. In particular, the Cowboys’ roster is being overhauled this offseason, which means that Gundy is looking ahead to spring. After all, that’s when he’s going to get a good idea of just how talented this team is going to be.

“There’s so many new players that, as I said, I’m excited to get into spring and find out what we have. I’m hoping,” Mike Gundy said.

The Oklahoma State Cowboys are losing numerous players through graduation, but there is also a large number of players leaving through the Transfer Portal. Mike Gundy has been active in the Transfer Portal in response to that, bringing in 23 new transfers to this point. That amounts to the 51st-ranked transfer class in the 2025 transfer cycle, according to the On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings.

High school recruiting remains important to Gundy and the Cowboys. With 21 recruits in their class, including a four-star recruit, the Cowboys have the 46th-ranked transfer class in the Class of 2025, according to the On3 2025 Industry Ranking football Team Recruiting Rankings.

“I’m hoping that at this time next year, it won’t be so dramatic. We had a large number of fifth- and sixth- and seventh-year seniors. So, if we would have had a typical Oklahoma State season for me being here — we win eight or nine games, 10 games — we still would have had a big portal year because we had so many players moving out. And we all know this, we can’t rely on gathering high school players and expect them to come in and play at a competitive level in the Big 12 next fall,” Gundy said.

“So, I don’t think anybody knows — I can only speak for us — I don’t know that we know what we’re dealing with yet until we at least get out of spring ball, and I would think that a lot of head coaches will tell you that. When you have this many new players, we really don’t know who we are until we get into spring ball and find out where we’re at. We’ve watched players, we evaluated them, we’ve seen them, but we’re just learning who they are at this point.”

Beyond the roster turnover, Mike Gundy also decided to make major staff changes this offseason. That includes making moves at both offensive and defensive coordinator, adding another question mark for Oklahoma State in 2025.

The Oklahoma State Cowboys won’t have a traditional spring game in 2025.