College football is changing, but Mike Gundy apparently still has some juice left.
In March of 2015, Gundy told the Tulsa World‘s Bill Haisten he planned to coach for 10 more seasons. Coaching through the 2024 season, Gundy would be 57. In 2019, Gundy told Haisten 60 would be a good number. He’ll turn 60 ahead of the 2027 season.
But, the Cowboys’ coach might still add to the timeline. During his press session at his induction to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame on Monday night, Gundy was asked about the future of OSU football, given the conference realignment chatter, and part of his pitch as to why OSU will be fine is the stability of its football program, now and into the future.
“We have a lot of stability with a head coach that’s been there 17 years,” Gundy said. “Very fortunate to be healthy and hopefully for another eight, or 10 or 12 or however long Kristen will let me do this.”
Eight years would just extend that age-60 timeline by a season, but 10 or 12 adds some significant mileage. If Gundy coached another 12 years, he would be 65 during the final year (2032).
Through his first 16 seasons as a head coach, Gundy was won 137 games. That’s 8.6 wins a year. If he did that for another 12 years, Gundy would have 240 career wins. That would put him just outside the current Top 10 of all-time major college coaches.
Wins | Coach |
---|---|
409 | Joe Paterno |
357 | Bobby Bowden |
323 | Bear Bryant |
311 | Pop Warner |
282 | Amos Alonzo Stagg |
261 | Nick Saban |
257 | LaVell Edwards |
255 | Tom Osborne |
253 | Mack Brown |
249 | Lou Holtz |
As things stand, Gundy enters 2021 84th in career wins, according to Sports Reference’s list. He is ninth among active FBS coaches in wins.
It’s hard to say what college football will look like in 2022 much less 2032, but it seems the Cowboys’ coach isn’t burning out on all the changes surrounding the sport quite yet.
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