Oklahoma State Can't Waste Time on Coaching Search

Oklahoma State is in the midst of a coaching search, but it shouldn’t wait too long to find the right guy.

Over the next several weeks, OSU will steadily turn its attention away from the football field and fully to the coaching search and the future of the program. While Chad Weiberg was rather blunt in September about OSU’s lack of interest in what the rest of this season had to offer, there are still plenty of players and even some coaches who will still be in the program beyond 2025.

So, the football team, regardless of how bad it’s been, has still been at the center of attention for much of the fall. However, that is all changing as the offseason inches closer and the Cowboys begin to enter the final stages of their coaching search.

Of course, that’s the ideal situation. If everything goes as planned, OSU should have a new football coach ready to get on the recruiting trail, get busy in the portal and hire a staff the second the Cowboys’ 2025 season comes to an end.

After firing Mike Gundy in mid-September, that is the only way that move would make any sense. The reason to fire a coach that early in the season is to get a coaching search underway and have the next head coach in place by the time the offseason begins.

While it might not necessarily be the end of the world if OSU doesn’t have a new coach introduced when the season finale against Iowa State goes final on Nov. 29, it would be an indication that the program has failed to some degree. After punting away an entire football season after only three games, not being able to accomplish the only thing on the to-do list would be an alarming sign moving forward.

In fact, it would make the most sense for OSU’s next coach to be hired while this season is still going. At the very least, OSU needs to have its next coach ready to come in at the beginning of the offseason, with the obvious possibility that the incoming boss is still wrapping up a season elsewhere.

Simply put, OSU can’t afford to wait. The Cowboys are already behind in the Big 12 in almost every way, and waiting weeks into the offseason on a new coach could be disastrous, especially in the short-term outlook with how quickly things move in college football.