Big 12 Football: Are Long-Tenured College Football Coaches Going Extinct?

College football ain’t what it used to be, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

By the end of the 2025 season, the Big 12 had said goodbye to two of the top 3 longest tenured head coaches in the country, leaving a big hole when it comes to experience. But in a league, and in a sport, that’s been defined by transition over the last few years, maybe some fresh blood is necessary.

Mike Gundy was fired mid-year after 21 years at the helm of Oklahoma State’s program. Then Kyle Whittingham stepped down a couple months later after 21 years at Utah (though just two in the Big 12). Only Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz (27 years) was longer in his post in the FBS. Whether or not it was time for each to go, the league lost a lot of experience and stability in a sport that has become even more in-flux of late.

With the exit of two such established program heads, I thought I would look around the league, dig into the numbers and see what kind of takeaways I could cobble together. First off, those two coaching changes made for a lot more parity when it comes to coaching experience.

If you take the 16 coaches set to lead the league this fall, they combine for just 43 seasons at their current job. That’s one more than Gundy’s and Whittingham’s tenures together when they left. Those exits alone cut the median tenure of coaches in the league in half (5.3 years on average to 2.7).

Breaking up is rarely pretty, but sometimes it’s necessary.

Although Gundy’s firing was not a complete shock given how the previous couple of years of his tenure had gone, Whittingham’s departure wasn’t exactly expected from an outsider’s view. The 66-year-old head coach reportedly wanted to stay on but negotiations broke down apparently stemming from Utah’s desire to keep an extension short and for him to cede control to head coach-in-waiting Morgan Scalley. Whittingham stepped down Dec. 12 but two weeks later he signed a five-year deal to lead Michigan’s program. Whether or not that decision backfires on Utah remains to be seen.

But that’s the same at any school. Even at OSU which was able to land one of the hottest up-and-comers in the nation in Eric Morris, who brought large portions of his staff and roster and boasts a highly ranked transfer portal class from North Texas and elsewhere.

College football has been a win-now culture for a couple of decades so seasoned longstays like Gundy and Whittingham were the exception even before the seismic shift of the last few years. We’ve seen NIL and transfer portal changes shift the sport closer to a free agency model than the amateur flag it had been trying to run under for as long as we can remember. What they lose in consistency and tradition, programs gain in the ability to pivot quickly now that you can retool 80 percent of your roster in an offseason.

There are five new head coaches that ran their first practices at their respective schools this spring, essentially one-third of the league. In addition to Morris, those include Jimmy Rodgers (Iowa State), Colin Klein (Kansas State), Scott Frost (UCF) and Morgan Scalley (Utah).

To be fair, Frost spent two years at UCF prior, but it was before the school joined the Big 12. And Scalley has been with his school since playing his college ball there and has served in some form on Utah’s staff since 2007.

But the average amount of years coaching in the Big 12 is just 2.1 years. That’s a stark contrast from the Big 12 many of us grew up under with figures like Bill Snyder, Bob Stoops, Mac Brown and Gundy running programs for decades instead of seasons.

BYU’s Kalani Sitake is the elder statesman of the hodge-podge Big 12, entering his 11th year in Provo. Next up is Dave Aranda entering Year 7 at Baylor and Lance Leipold going into his sixth at KU. The remaining 13 head coaches have five years’ experience or less in the league.

Only three of those 16 current coaches have a Big 12 trophy on their mantel and all three won the title within their first three years in the league. Aranda got one in his second year in 2021, Dillingham got his in 2024 in his second year at Arizona State but his first in the Big 12. Joey McGuire took a whole three years to take the crown home last season. This may say more about the parity in the conference as each of those were their school’s first Big 12 titles.

With that turnover comes its own limitations and insecurities. What if Morris kicks butt and wins 10 games this season? What if he follows the McGuire’s and Dillingham’s of the world and brings some hardware home? His name will be atop all coaching search lists and a school like OSU will always run the risk of “stepping-stone” status. But like it or not, that’s a good problem to have.

Gundy built a winning and preternaturally consistent program (even with the last two years included) and boasts the title of best to do it in Stillwater until someone proves otherwise, which may or may not be possible giving the new model. Back to Iowa, Ferentz has been nothing but consistent in his time in Iowa City. Just four losing seasons in 27 years. But the Hawkeyes also haven’t owned a share in the Big Ten title since 2004 and have not won an outright title since 1985.

I guess it comes down to shifting your opinion of what a college football program is. Or maybe, to being more honest about what it is. It’s entertainment commodified, in a huge way. Results matter and fresh blood can be a boon, if the formula is right — and there are a lot of variables.

It might be over-simplifying to call it a sign of the times, but those long-timers figure to be more and more rare. Maybe they’ll go extinct. The sport has changed a lot, and to their credit, OSU brass took steps to change with it.