Mike Gundy: "College football is going to look completely different in two years..."
The stories of high school kids going to where the NIL money is gets a lot of attention and clicks, but that's not how the majority of college football programs are operating in today's NIL era, according to Mike Gundy.
In a recent piece by Max Olson for The Athletic, Gundy shared that only the top tier of Power Five programs are able to engage in "pay-for-play battles" for recruits.
Gundy shares that approach doesn't seem sustainable, and they're not doing that in Stillwater, instead they have two NIL collectives that are focused on helping every player on the roster.
"It's not a sustainable way of life, in may opinion. Maybe there's 10 or 12 schools in the country that can live that way. The other 45 or 50 that are in the Power Five conferences, they can't sustain that type of model."
As much as NIL and the transfer portal have changed college football over the last several years, Gundy really believes that this is just the beginning and the game could look completely different as soon as two years down the road, and there's no turning back.
"We're adapting and learning on the run. College football is going to look completely different two years from now, in my opinion, and maybe even quicker than that."
"People need to quit talking about whether they like it or not. It's here. The genie's out of the bottle. It's over. So for Oklahoma State, they very most important thing we can do is make sure we're taking care of the student-athletes and our players."
Along with that willingness to adapt, and taking care of the guys on their roster now, protecting the culture he and his staff have built is another one of Gundy's top priorities.
"What that's gonna look like over the next six months, I don't know. But we have to keep our culture in place. We are who we are. We're not changing that. We're good at what we do."
"Until we get a governing body - if there's gonna be one - and someone gives us direction and tell us what the parameters are, we're all reacting on the run. That's the way I see it. When nobody is in charge, that's what happens. And really, right now, nobody's in charge.
See Gundy's full comments below.
