Oklahoma State Must Adapt in This Era of College Football

Oklahoma State needs to stay active in this era of college football to achieve its goals.

Throughout the past few years, nothing has been consistent about college football other than inconsistency. With so many changes to the playoff format and transfer portal and everything in between, the landscape of college sports is likely going to keep changing.

While the outlook of the sport and the way rosters are built will continue to shift and evolve over time, there is still one thing that will remain the same. The only thing that truly matters is which team scores the most points in any given game.

Mike Gundy has been around for over two decades, and he is no stranger to the fact that whatever happens off the field no longer matters when the ball is kicked off. However, to find any success on Saturdays, teams in this era have to be successful on random Tuesdays in March or a Friday in June.

In the not-so-distant past, that was still the case but with much lower stakes. Recruiting players out of high school is still a key part of winning in college football, but the Cowboys have learned that you now must recruit not only potential incoming transfers but your own players to stick around after each season.

In the early stages of NIL and the transfer portal, OSU was hesitant to evolve with the sport. Gundy’s views on these new wrinkles were about as simple as they could be: he didn’t care about them and wasn’t going to use them.

It didn’t take long for that strategy to change after seeing the success around the country with teams using the portal to their advantage. He also saw the potential stagnancy of his own team.

While this offseason has shown he and OSU are more than willing to adapt to these new changes, they must continue to show that they will adapt in the future. In this era, being proactive can be tricky, and sometimes, being reactive is still good enough, but to truly be elite in 2025 and beyond, OSU can’t get stuck behind the rest of the Big 12.