What President Trump Has to do With the Future of Oklahoma State Football

I think we like to think of Oklahoma State, both the football program and the facilities, as a finished product. We thought in the mid 2000s that that was it. That’s all the money and upgrades Oklahoma State will ever need. And maybe it is, but also maybe it’s not.

Maybe the 2017 Bedlam game will be a launching pad for Oklahoma State to go from the 13th or 16th best program in the country to the 6th or 8th. Maybe not, of course, but the fallout from the last few days and what Gundy was spewing on Monday has me excited.

Last Saturday was the first time since OSU won the Big 12 title that this game has been 1. Between top 10 teams and 2. Also a great game. It’s ironic, too, that a loss to OU of all things has seemingly galvanized the orange trinity of football power brokers in Stillwater, USA.

“We get tweets from Mr. Pickens, and he started the thing,” said Gundy on Monday. “He’s always said ‘I want to compete,’ and that’s what we did. The overall concept of what we — Mr. Pickens, Coach Holder, myself and the organization — have been striving for, that’s what we got Saturday.”

But the question now is how you go from the 10th-winningest program in the country since 2010 to the 5th-winningest program come 2022? The main way is to secure more talent. There are ways to do that that are quick. Ask Baylor if that’s advisable.

And I think this goes a little understated. This is separate from Gundy’s Bedlam record — because that should be better — but building a nationally-relevant program that isn’t undergirded with the types of things that happened in Waco takes decades. Literally decades. Should you have to wait decades to beat OU? Of course not, but to get where we all want to be — winning lots of Big 12 titles and consistently competing for the CFP. That’s going to take a long, long time. Might you do it once every six years? Sure, OSU has. But how do you go from being Oklahoma State to Ohio State?

The triumvirate seems intent on setting up their successors for, well, success.

“I liked that (Pickens) had put out tweets saying, ‘We’re going to funnel more money into football. We’re going to make sure we keep our coaches unless they go to be head coaches. We’re going to continue to push money into air travel for recruiting so we can try to get the very best young men in this program that have the most talent.’

“We’re going to have those options now with the direction we’re going, regardless of whether you’re left or right, with where the thing’s going in the market. Everything is going through the roof. The business value of what Trump has put into place is going to help us. There’s going to be more things we can use.”

?

So essentially Gundy is saying that because Trump is adding value to American businesses, more Oklahoma State donors will be able to give more money to improve facilities and recruiting.

To wit: “I had two phone calls Sunday morning from very prominent people that are involved in Oklahoma State football that are very influential in a lot of areas, not only financially,” Gundy said. “And they said, ‘You just tell us what you need. We’re gonna make this happen.’”

Side note (PLEASE hear this): I have no idea if Trump is adding more value to American businesses. I’m simply writing what Gundy said and apparently thinks. 

So what would that money be used for?

As Mark Cooper noted in the Tulsa World, a jumbotron for one. An academic center, other career-oriented centers, 482 new uniform combinations (I made that one up).

https://twitter.com/RedditCFB/status/888396434239868928

But as you can see, the future is a continuation of the past. This is why Saturday was so important and why Pickens’ tweets were so meaningful. If OSU had gotten hammered again by OU, Gundy ain’t fielding those phone calls.

The flip side of this argument is that Gundy doesn’t even really care about talent so how exactly is money going to help (?) He has said before that he doesn’t chase five-star players because they couldn’t get them even after winning double-digit games.

“We win 10, 12 games, and we can get in on these [five-star] guys,” Gundy told ESPN in 2015. “We would get in a little bit, but we didn’t finish. So right, wrong or indifferent, we’ve gone right back to know your area, find out who’s out there, this is what we’re looking for to fit our system. Do they like to play football? Do they have respect for themselves, which gives them a chance to be successful? Do they fit what we’re looking for? Do we believe in them? If so, we’re going to go for them.”

That’s fine because it meshes with your culture, but can you become a top-10 program without them? Or has his attitude on this changed? Why is it different now? And is it disingenuous to say “more money will help us recruit better” when you’ve admitted that at times you don’t even go for top recruits? Maybe none of this matters because you need to become 5 percent better (not 50 percent), but I have many questions, and this is going to be a fascinating offseason storyline to me.

We have lived in this 10-year stretch where it didn’t necessarily feel like progress was being made because the last bit of progress (stadium renovation) was so immense. But a practice facility was built in that span of time, and several other smaller additions were made to the program.

So maybe more money and more toys equates to more talent which equates to more wins and more titles. Maybe not. But if the equation to having an elite (like, really elite) program is stuff + culture, Oklahoma State already has already implemented and figured out how to embrace the tougher of those two components. Maybe a stirred-up group of boosters and a seemingly-juiced up Gundy will provide the rest.