Wetzel: Mike Gundy dug in his heels and got left behind
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Dan Wetzel
Back in November of 2015, when his Clemson program was still barreling toward a national title (it would win two of them), Dabo Swinney spoke about the life cycle of a business.
“You’ve got the birth. You’ve got the growth. You’ve got plateau. You’ve got decline. And you’ve got death,” Swinney said. “Those great businesses out there, those great programs, they don’t plateau.
“So how do you do that?” he continued. “You have to constantly reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn, grow. You change. You have to do that. You don’t just change to change, but you have to always challenge yourself each and every year and make sure, ‘OK, this may be how we’ve done it, but is it still the right way?'”
The business of college football in 2025 is different from 2015. Direct revenue-sharing, NIL and the transfer portal have not just altered the way rosters are assembled, but even how individuals and teams need to be coached.
It’s like most businesses and industries. Nothing is static. You either enthusiastically welcome that, or, in Swinney’s words, “You’ve got death.”
Mike Gundy is very much alive; he just is no longer employed at Oklahoma State, where over 21 seasons he became the program’s all-time winningest coach. He and Swinney have much in common.
Both are in their mid-to-late 50s (Swinney 55, Gundy 58). Both built up underperforming programs through their own force of will — a combination of competitive drive, innovative schemes and personal charisma. During the 2010s, few were better.
They have also been among the most vocal critics, and least enthusiastic embracers, of the new era of the sport. It shows.
Dabo’s Tigers, hyped as title contenders in the preseason, are 1-3 with losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse. Gundy, meanwhile, was fired after a 1-2 start that included a humbling loss to Tulsa.
In his final news conference before being dismissed, Gundy bemoaned pretty much everything new.
“It’s like being in an argument with your wife,” Gundy said. “And you know you’re right. It makes zero difference. You’re wrong. You might as well just get over it, give in, and things are going to be much smoother.”
It seems that defeatist attitude and begrudging acceptance of new dynamics bled into Gundy’s program.
Anyone can add a player through the portal. But if you don’t accept and understand the portal, if you aren’t spending time passionately trying to make it work best for you, are you getting the right player? You can’t go in with feet dragging.
Swinney is a traditionalist; often for admirable reasons. He wants to be loyal to players he recruited, preferring to believe in and develop them rather than just transfer in a better talent.
Times change, though. You can lament it. You can pine for the old days. Or you can adapt so you don’t wind up like a typewriter repair shop.
Establishment coaches often rail against transfer culture, painting players who jump around as disloyal or running from a challenge. That might be the case for some, but for many others, the portal is a chance to prove their worth by working up the ladder from smaller to bigger programs.
Big programs recruit based on sophomore and junior years of high school. A lot of guys fall through those cracks. Maybe they hailed from small towns or hadn’t hit growth spurts, or their parents couldn’t afford throwing coaches and nutritionists. Maybe they didn’t get invited to the “Elite 11.”
Yet, once in college, they worked and worked and improved and improved, generally at smaller programs without the fanciest of locker rooms or some unearned sense of greatness based on “tradition.”
Others might have failed at their first school, or got spurned by a previous coach. Now, on their last chance, they are fighting the way they always should have.
As with old-school recruiting, coaches who love the portal are probably going to get the best of those players over coaches who just tolerate the portal. Diamonds are everywhere.
Syracuse and Georgia Tech didn’t have more “talent” — and certainly not higher-ranked recruits — when they beat Clemson. Same with Tulsa and OSU. They didn’t have better facilities or higher-paid assistants.
But they might have had what Dabo and Gundy used to exude in excess — an intense drive to win. High school recruiting rankings don’t matter to the scoreboard.
Gundy couldn’t make it work in the new era. Can the extremely talented Swinney? A lot of coaches can’t. It’s not an age thing, though — Indiana’s Curt Cignetti is 64 and thriving. It’s an attitude thing. It’s about fervently attacking new possibilities.
Reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn, grow.
It can’t be like holding your tongue in a fight with your spouse.
Mike Gundy already tried that approach.
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