Gundy Praises 2017 Seniors for Off-Field Accomplishments as Much as On-Field Glory

Alabama, Clemson, Wisconsin, OU and Ohio State. Those are the five Power 5 teams that have won 10+ games in each of the last three years. Oklahoma State and Stanford can join them by winning their bowl games (or for Stanford, the Pac-12 title game).

That’s an impressive feat for Oklahoma State’s seniors. But Gundy dismissed OSU’s on-field accomplishments in favor of their off-field ones on Saturday after beating Kansas 58-17.

“I told the seniors that as much as they’ve accomplished on the field, these are high class, high character guys,” said Gundy. “You can walk outside this stadium and ask what OSU’s record was in 2006 and 2008 and 2004, and I doubt more than one or two could tell you. It’ll be the same thing with this class.

“One thing that will stick with them forever … these are high class, high character guys. That’s who they are. They have developed this culture, and the young players need to watch and learn from them. As a coaching staff we couldn’t be any more proud of what those guys have accomplished and what they stand for.”

I feel torn on this. Gundy means it, and it seems true. But I also feel like this reality has served as a bit of misdirection for the fact that OSU fell on its face a little bit on the field this year. Both of those things can be true, of course. OSU can both 1. Have good off-field players and 2. Have failed on the field. And I think they are.

But for some reason the “nobody will remember how many games you won” thing rings a little hollow right now. Maybe I’ll feel differently in a month or three or six. I don’t know.

Still, what Gundy said on Saturday was genuine.

“The fans, the administration and everyone involved should feel the same way because they’re first class guys,” he said of his seniors. “You look back and you think that you got to spend a lot of time with guys who do things right. They work as hard as they can. They give their bodies up.

“We push ’em, and we push ’em and we push ’em, and they keep doing it. As you can tell, I’m very proud of them. I wouldn’t trade them for anybody. I’m looking forward to spending another month with them and then playing in a bowl game.”

Winning 30 games in three years doesn’t get as much credit as it should from most fans of any school, and I think that while this particular season will be looked at as a disappointment, the Rudolph era will not be looked at that way. I think it will be seen as another checkpoint in Oklahoma State’s journey to the upper crust of college football. It’s clear that Gundy feels building a strong culture on and off the field is part of getting to that position, and it’s even more clear that this group of seniors has done exactly that.