The Rundown: What Mike Gundy Said about His 2021 Signing Class

With a few late moves, the Cowboys have climbed up to third in the Big 12 in 2021 recruiting rankings.

Oklahoma State signed 21 prospects on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. Shortly after all the letters of intent came in, Mike Gundy met with reporters via Zoom to discuss his class. Here is what he said.

Opening Statement

“It’s good to get it in, get them all tucked away. We got exactly what we wanted. Seven Oklahoma kids, nine Texas. Huge, huge class for midterm. Bringing players in early is getting very popular. It’s kind of what we’ve done here for the years past. We would like to concentrate on Oklahoma and Texas and surrounding states. This will put us at the number of 85, which is what we need to be at as we move forward through the summer.”

On the quality of Oklahoma high school football

“Well I’ve said this for the last four or five years that the football in the state of Oklahoma is getting better and better, in our opinion. If you look at our roster per capita by Oklahoma players, you’ll see that the percentage is very high of players that we’re having success with on game day for the state of Oklahoma. So we’re very proud of that. We consider Texas, for the most part, in state. We’re a four-hour drive to the Metroplex and all that surrounding area and east Texas. A little different when you get into central Texas and Houston area. But overall, we’re very excited about what the state of Oklahoma offers us.”

On if it was difficult recruiting with all the COVID restrictions

“It wasn’t an issue because it was the same for everybody. So, we might have learned a lot in recruiting from a standpoint of in the future it might be more feasible to be more virtual, just like we’re learning a lot of other things over the last nine months with COVID. I think the one issue that we all struggle with is we didn’t get to see them or their parents face to face. But I think that it was equal for everybody across the board, so I wouldn’t say there was an advantage one way or the other.”

On De’Kelvion Beamon and him reclassifying into the 2021 class

“Yeah, he’s been committed to us for a long time and then he made a decision to come out early. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of these players are graduating early, getting credit, so on and so forth. That’s kind of the style now, so he wanted to come out early and get started. Obviously, a player that we wanted for over a year.”

On OSU recruiting a handful of corners who also played receiver

“Speed, athleticism and ball skills is what we’re looking for. We’ve had a lot of success in the past bringing guys in and switching them over to the other side of the ball. So we want them to be able to run, we want to be athletic and we want to have good ball skills.”

On defensive tackle Aden Kelley

“Well Aden’s a special young man being from western Oklahoma, grew up in farms 12, 14, 16 hours a day in the summer and the spring. Actually still farms in the mornings then goes to school and goes to workouts. He brings in the type of work ethic that we’re looking for. I think he’s just scratching the surface. He’s a 290-pounder that’s extremely strong but more importantly has ties to the state of Oklahoma, is very fond of Oklahoma State University. Just scratching the surface from his athletic ability as he develops in the weight room over the next couple years.”

On Bryson and Blaine Green recently being compared to Dez Bryant in terms of body type rather than the Wallace twins

“Those guys are going to play at 215 or 220, so you’re looking at a completely different body structure [than the Wallace twins] but with athleticism. It’s interesting every time that I call them or FaceTime them. I only had to call one of the numbers because they were inseparable. just like the Wallace brothers. Close-knit, close family. Gonna bring a lot to the program, but they could they could play at 220.”

On other programs offering kids after OSU offers them like the other programs are watching OSU

“It’s been going on for 10 years. Everybody needs to learn to do their job themselves and patterning themselves off us.”

On what rosters could look like with the extra year of eligibility players get from this season

“We don’t have any idea. You match up your 85. The NCAA or whoever’s gonna govern college football over the next nine to 12 months it’s going to have to make a decision on what we do with the 85. My opinion, they’re gonna have to get rid of the 85, you have open transfer that’s going to be going in the spring. It’s going to be pushed back to players that decide to transfer as we speak now. They’re going to be open transfer. And it’s going to happen. It’s the new thing across the country, young men are going to jump in.

“Now the issue you have is you have an overloaded portal with not many scholarships to give. So, some of the players are going to have to be real careful about jumping in the portal, based on, there’s not going to be many scholarships to offer to transfers. But I have no idea what’s going to happen with the 85. I have no idea what’s going to happen with the 25 because they’re not been anybody gives us any indication of what direction we’re going.”

On if he warns kids before going in the portal that it might be different this year than it has been

“Sure, I just let them know because they leave for different reasons. Sometimes you have a young man that says, ‘I just want to go be closer to home,’ and if they’ve already got their degree here then you certainly understand that. But I’m going to guess that they have a pretty good indication of where they’re going, and they have somewhere to land and their education paid for, which in most cases with these guys would be postgraduate school. Otherwise there’s just not going to be many out there based on the super seniors that are floating around these Power Five conference schools.”

On Ty Williams

“Well Ty Williams is a freakish athlete. He’s going to be 210 pounds some day. He’s gonna run 4.5. He’s got really good ball skills. We have a good relationship with the people in Muskogee. They speak very highly of him as a young man and what he brings to the program. I called him several times this year during the week, and he would be riding his bike to Wednesday night church, things like that. I think he’s a great fit here, but we have a lot of confidence and are very excited about his unusual strength, leaping ability and ball skills for the multiple positions that he plays.”

On recruiting positionless defensive backs

“We’re going to sign DBs that are athletic, have good ball skills and can run. Then we’ll slot them in when they get here, based on what we think is best. The way that we’re playing defense now, the different types of coverages, particularly a lot of man coverage, gives these guys a chance to come in and still develop some skills that allow them to prepare for the NFL because basically that’s what you play in the NFL, a lot of man coverage. We’ve had a lot of interest from young men that are willing to play in our defensive secondary in any of the five positions because they like that they get to play man coverage over 50% of the time and that’s potentially developing them and putting really good video together for the NFL.”

On some of the early enrollees still playing in high school playoffs

“They will come in three or four days later. It’s not an issue. They’ll still be able to start school. Those games would be on January, I think, I don’t know if it’s the 15th or 16th, whatever that Saturday is in January. We got several players that can potentially be in that position, but then they’ll finish up and come rolling on in the next week.”

On whether OSU is looking to sign a quarterback in the class

“Well, I mean we’re always looking for what’s out there, but these are the positions that we feel that that we needed to fill to solidify the numbers that we look for by position across our board.”

On if OSU can still “wow kids” with facilities or if it’s getting harder to separate with other programs catching up

“Well when nobody’s visiting here. There’s not been anybody on our campus. I mean you do virtual, but I mean it’s just not the same. I mean it’s just like us doing these Zoom calls we do, it’s not the same as having a conversation in person with all of us there. The interesting thing about recruiting this year is we’ve learned a lot in the ability that we have to do some things virtually. You do lose face-to-face conversation with the recruit and his parents. That is the one side of it that none of us like. And if there’s a second it’s, you don’t see any facilities. You can look at things on Zoom and on videos, but there’s not anything going on right now facility-wise.

“”I don’t know who doesn’t have anything bright and new. That’s just kind of the way it is. In football, if you haven’t built something new in two or three years, in most cases, you’re falling behind. That’s what happens. Most of the schools that we recruit against are all have relatively new facilities, maybe except a couple in this league. But that’s kind of what it is people are always building something new.”

On Collin Oliver and the pipeline between OSU and Edmond-Santa Fe

“We’re very high on Oklahoma high school football. Calvin Bundage was a very moderately recruited player. Trace Ford was moderately recruited. We offered Collin a long time ago when he was probably 195 or 200. He’s close to 220 now. We see him as a guy that could potentially develop in Coach Glass’ weight room like Trace Ford. So we see guys in Oklahoma that we feel like they are going to develop in our culture, in our strength and conditioning program. We like them more than other people because we have to look down the road. We go after him and we don’t look back. We see him falling in that category.”

On if it is a concern having to rely on tape for this class and not getting to evaluate them in person

“None whatsoever. The technology has allowed us to watch video on anybody, anywhere in the country from seventh grade up. We can see all their games. We can pull it up. I can pull an NFL game up. I can pull any college team and watch all their games this year. I can pull any high school team, any junior high team, unless somebody at that particular school refuses to put them online, which is very, very, very rare. We have everything we need. We get information from talking to principals, teachers, counselors, people we know at the schools. We have good relationships at the schools in Oklahoma and Texas because we’ve been going in there forever. We get information on young men. We can watch all their video, and then we can have communication with them. As I said earlier, we’re just losing the face to face with the players and the parents, which I don’t like. If you and I are going to have a conversation that’s worthwhile and it’s face to face, it’s going to be much better because I can see your body reactions, I can see your emotions, you can see mine. So, that side of it is not as good, but this class is fantastic.

“I’m not concerned at all about this class. Todd Bradford’s come in as our director of recruiting, and he’s brought a lot of new ideas and things. It’s been awesome. I like the staff. I like the way they recruit. Putting this group with the guys that we have here and the players that we’ll recruit over the next few years, we’ll be competing for a big 12 championship.”

On multisport athletes

“I like multiple-sport guys. Multiple-spor guys mean that they’re athletic. If I can play at a high school level, and I can play two sports, that means I’m more athletic than a guy that only plays one or the other guy would be playing two sports in most cases. You have a few players that just say I want to isolate on football, but if I have a player that can play basketball, he can 360 dunk and he can also play DB or wideout, he’s probably a fairly good athlete. If I can find a young man that’s like Malcolm Rodriguez, or Brock Martin, who’s a three or four time state champion wrestler and still plays football and play shortstop on the baseball team, he’s going to be really athletic. And he’s competitive, and I know he’s tough. So we like multisport athletes. We like wrestlers. We like guys that are physical and that can run, and then hopefully we can find a place to put them as they develop in our culture here at Oklahoma State.”

On the importance of getting junior college guys to shore up depth questions

“So if we get to a spot where we have issues depth-wise and being immature or inexperienced or not physically ready to play like what happened to this issue in the offensive line. We put three players in the game that played the last 75% of the season for us in the offensive line, who gave us awesome effort and they’re going to be the players in this program, but they weren’t physically strong enough to play and they weren’t ready to play based on experience. If we get in that position, we have to look to say, ‘OK, how can we solve that problem as quick as possible so we don’t get into the same situation next year?’ And that’s based on who we have coming back, what their maturity level is, what we think their strength levels are, then that determines, Do we go pick the high school player up and put him in the program for developing or do we go find a portal player?’ And when I say portal I’m calling junior college portals, it’s all the same now right? What difference does it make. You’re either getting a kid that’s got three years or two years left. Sometimes a one year, you can pick up a portal player and bring him in if you feel like there’s somebody you need to add based on inexperience or strength levels at one particular position.”

On Nick Martin

“Old school. First time I talked to Nick I said, ‘Nick, you know I like you? Because you’re old school. You like to play football. You like to hit.’ They’re gonna play him everywhere because he’s very athletic. We’re gonna bring him in and put 20 pounds on him. He can run, he’s athletic, he’s very tough. he likes to play football and he’s a good young man. He’s a perfect fit for us here at Oklahoma State, but he’s old school he’ll strike you and he’s not scared.”

On the class being close with each other

“One of the rare pluses of social media is young men being able to develop a relationship prior to them coming on campus. And that allows that to happen.”

On Caleb Etienne

“New Orleans by way of junior college in Kansas, 6-7 330, I don’t know, give or take maybe more, maybe less, something in that area. He’s going to bring a lot of size and strength and experience to us. Obviously something we needed based on having the issues we had this year with inexperience at the offensive line position. He’s a guy that will give us some juice. He’s going to give you some size and some strength at that position as soon as he gets on campus.”

On the benefits of kids enrolling early

“It’s based individually on young men. Some of them want to go to their spring year high school, some of them are ready to move on with their life. If they get in here they’re obviously going to get 12 to 15 hours, they’re going to learn the college experience, they’re going to come through our offseason conditioning program and find out that they’re not in good shape. They’re going to get that out of the way. They’ll get to go through spring ball. Hopefully they can absorb 50% of what they learned in spring ball, and they go through summer conditioning. They should already know the terminology. They should already be in decent shape. They should understand what it takes to perform here on a physical level.

“That’ll help them in the summer and then when we roll around August, there’ll be considerably further ahead than what a player would be coming in on campus in August, just because they finally had gone through everything and I’m sure failed and struggled and realized it’s not what it was in high school and figured out a way to overcome adversity, is what I see. But there’s no guarantees there, but that’s what they’re getting at they come in early.”

On more than half of the signees enrolling early

“It helps us in spring ball because of your numbers. Obviously, you lose the majority your seniors. Could be a little different this year with super senior class, don’t have any idea about that, then when you have players leave and go on the portal. I would think we’ll have, just guessing, three or four or five players that will go on to portal over the next few months just based on percentages and what happens. I think that’s fairly common for most Power Five schools right now. I don’t know who those players would be, but just seeing the numbers when that happens when you get more numbers to come in and be in spring ball that gives you a chance to compete more and have better competitive practices during spring ball.”

On if now is when he starts having conversations will potential returning seniors

“We don’t have to because after we play in the bowl game and they go get a break and they report back to school in January, if they report back in January and show up for offseason conditioning, then that means they’re going to play. If they don’t, then that means you’re not. It just kind of solves itself, you know, process of elimination.”

On adding Cowboy back Austin Jarrard

“We’re in 11 and 12 personnel more than we have been in the past few years, so you need a little bit more depth. He’s athletic. We think that he’s a little bit of a gem from a standpoint that he’s not really developed himself physically. We feel like that we can grab him, develop him physically, get his strength levels up to a point where he can be competitive at the point of attack next fall. We feel like that he’ll still be very athletic, which is what we look for at that particular position.

“We don’t go all the way across the country a lot unless we feel like we have a young man that will fit into our culture and do well in a geographical area here. And he’s done a very good job over the last two years of taking care of himself. He’s become a self-made guy. He works. He works in a restaurant 20 to 25 hours a week. He’s a full-time student. He’s training. I like what he brings to the table. I think that he understands commitment, and he realizes that there’s a work ethic that has to be established in order to be successful in life and I see him at that point with where he’s at in his career.”

On if Jarrard will play junior college ball this spring before coming to OSU

“I can’t keep up with what they what they’re doing now Mississippi’s doing one thing, Texas is doing another, Kansas doing another, California’s doing another. I don’t have any idea what they’re doing out there. We want him to be comfortable with whatever he feels like that he needs to do with his career and his lifestyle. We put the ball in his court. I’m just guessing with all the things that flashed across my computer about the virus on the west coast, I don’t know that they’ll be playing out there. So, maybe he shows up sooner, maybe he plays, we’ll just kind of follow his lead.”

Closing statement

“Well I think this is a fantastic class. As always, we bring really, really quality young men into our culture. It’s interesting in this group, we’ve got the majority of them that we really have a good idea of what they’ll do. We have two or three guys that we think have really, really, really high ceilings. They haven’t reached that point yet, so it’ll be interesting to see how they develop in our program. We always take two or three guys a year that we feel like to come in and as they develop and buy into our culture, they could potentially be mid or early round NFL picks, or if they don’t you know maybe they end up not doing it.

“This is a fantastic class. A lot of credit goes to our recruiting office with Todd Bradford and then our coaches who did a great job with all the virtual and FaceTime and phone calls that we had to use based on the virus, so I couldn’t be more proud of them. Marilyn Middlebrook, her and her group and academics were fantastic as always. We have so much to sell there. We’re setting at, gosh what 364 now, graduates, since I’ve been the head coach here. We have so much to sell there and she’s done a great job. I’m just proud of all of them, much deserved break for everybody. They’ve done a great job looking forward to them give a little time off.”