STILLWATER — Parker Robertson would speak to most everyone he passed in the OSU football facility all summer. Robertson is from Rockwall, Texas. That’s the way things are done in the still-small-but-booming town east of Dallas.
Only one problem. Robertson didn’t know everybody’s name.
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“You’re always so busy, you can’t catch a name,” said Robertson, a safety who’s in his fifth Cowboy season. “You’re just like saying, ‘what’s up?’”
When OSU football camp started a few weeks ago, Mike Gundy still was pushing his mandate: introduce yourself to two teammates a day and engage them in 30-second conversations. You know, the kind of stuff they do at Boys State, or maybe freshman orientation at Broken Arrow High School.
“Man, it is crazy,” OSU defensive end Jaleel Johnson, in his fourth Cowboy season, said when camp launched in early August. “I still don’t even know all their names. But the cats I do know, man, I love being around them. They’re a joy to be around.”
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Now there’s a good attitude. But still problematic.
OSU hosts Tennessee-Martin on Thursday night to launch Gundy’s 21st season as head coach. And everything is different.
The Cowboys sport 62 new players on its 114-man roster, and about half of those 62 didn’t show up until June. Every position coach and both coordinators are new except kicking-game coordinator Sean Snyder, who was hired in July 2024.
OSU not that long ago was one of college football’s most stable organizations. The Cowboys had the same coach, athletic director and president (Gundy/Mike Holder/Burns Hargis) from 2008-21. Gundy had one of the longest-serving coaching staffs among power-conference schools. Just last year, Gundy had five assistants with double-digit OSU seasons.
About the only remnants of past glory are Rob Glass in the weight room, Robert Allen on the radio and Pistol Pete on the sideline.
Oklahoma State faces South Dakota State (copy)
Mike Gundy launches his 21st season as Oklahoma State's head coach against Tennessee-Martin Thursday night. Daniel Shular, Tulsa World Archive
Now, instability reigns. Brand new team, including dueling quarterbacks who could walk into Eskimo Joe’s without being recognized. Brand new staff. An athletic director, Chad Weiberg, without a contract. A president, Jim Hess, who everyone believes is short-term and stopgap. A regents leader, Jimmy Harrel, who is 84. And a football coach who twice this decade has avoided getting fired for non-football reasons and just went 0-9 in the Big 12 Conference.
All in an era of college football where everything has changed. OSU is in a league with Arizona and Central Florida. Players, suddenly with more freedom than coaches, are jumping from school to school, sometimes twice between seasons. The money crunch is not for paying off coaches or building a dorm with jacuzzis in every room, but to buy linebackers and quarterbacks.
This is not the world in which Gundy built the OSU brand. Won a conference championship and caused the Bowl Championship Series (“that’s right, BCS!”) to get torn down. Built Bedlam into a national rivalry and beat Texas nine times in a 13-year span.. Gave OSU an identity far beyond Big 12 borders.
This is a Star Trek episode. Gundy is Captain Kirk, having been beamed down to the planet Zultron, where the sky is green and the grass is blue, and Mister Spock and Doctor McCoy are nowhere to be found.
Oklahoma State vs. Arizona State (copy)
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy says the Cowboys still will ride the culture that has been built over two decades. Mike Simons, Tulsa World Archive
Gundy likes to say he’s still the one guy who can fix OSU football, but how can he do that? He’s like Parker Robertson and Jaleel Johnson, still learning the names of the guys he needs to excel on special teams against Baylor and Texas Tech.
Gundy says the Cowboys still will ride the culture that has been built over two decades. And OSU’s culture indeed was stout. Discipline. Perseverance. Consistency. A lot to like about the way Gundy ran things for those 20 years.
But culture is not an atmosphere. Culture is not shot out of the air ducts, enveloping players like a gas. Culture is passed down through people, and all of a sudden, the newcomers outnumber the oldtimers, and that’s even counting Sean Snyder and never-played Zane Flores as oldtimers.
Oklahoma State vs. Arizona State (copy)
Oklahoma State defensive end Jaleel Johnson, right: "“I still don’t even know all their names. But the cats I do know, man, I love being around them. They’re a joy to be around," Johnson said about OSU's 62 new players. Mike Simons, Tulsa World Archive
“We’re all different,” Gundy said. “Everybody has their own way of doing things. In most cases with young people, even though they’re 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, whatever, and they make a lot of money, they’re still young people. And either way, sometimes they might resist for a little while.
“Then at some point in this organization, you have to decide whether you want to do it or not. As I said, they decided that they wanted to do it. So that’s the evidence I have that it’s working. It’s worked here forever.”
Except here has changed. Cowboy consistency has been swept down the plains. College football is different. The faces are new, both the people in pads and the people in polos. Gundy is on planet Zoltran, still learning names and wishing for the good old days.
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
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