STILLWATER — A few years ago, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy began to buck college football’s trend of playing a spring game.
Now that the national trend has caught up to Gundy’s way of thinking, the coach is reversing course — at least for this year.
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OSU’s Orange and White Game is back on.
“This team needs to play a game,” Gundy said following Tuesday’s practice at the Sherman Smith Training Center. “We’re gonna play a game. We’re gonna split teams. We’re gonna split coaches. And we’re gonna play a real game.
“I need to see them play a game.”
Gundy said he came to that decision Monday, but hadn’t yet filled in his coaching staff on the details of his plan.
Gundy had planned to hold an open practice at 1 p.m. Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium on what was originally labeled Orange Power Weekend. Festivities also include the Remember the Ten run set for Saturday morning, plus a three-game series for the baseball team and a soccer scrimmage.
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Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy introduces Cross Canadian Ragweed during “The Boys from Oklahoma” concert at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Okla., Thursday, April 10, 2025.
But the open practice will be replaced by a game, also set to start at 1 p.m., though Gundy says he’s been monitoring weather.
“You have an 84% chance of thunderstorms after 12 o’clock,” he said. “If it stays consistent like that, we may back it up to an 11 a.m. kickoff. I’d like to do it at 1 o’clock, but I’ve lived in Oklahoma a long time and I know what happens when the humidity starts building in the afternoon in Oklahoma.”
The game will consist of three 15-minute quarters — at least according to Gundy’s preliminary plan which he seemed to still be thinking through as he talked about it.
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“In my mind, I’m thinking 15-15-15 with no halftime,” Gundy said. “To me, halftimes at spring games are bummers. A lot of people leave and everybody’s just sitting around.”
Yes, Gundy still has all the same concerns other coaches have begun to express about spring games, from the dangers of other programs poaching players to the increased threat of injuries.
But for now at least, his need to see his largely new roster on the field in a game-like situation outweighs those worries.
“There’s so many new players that have played and competed well in practice, and I don’t know anything about them, so I want to see them play in a game,” Gundy said. “We’ll let coaches draft players and we’ll split the team and we’ll play a game.
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“The middle of last week, I started to think I need to see these guys play a game. And the fans want a game anyway, so I’m thrilled for the fans, to make them happy. But more importantly, this team needs to play a game, and we’ve held up from a health standpoint that we can do that.”
Gundy says the current 104-player roster has 32 new players, plus several returners who were down the depth chart last season, but could contend for rotational spots this year.
“I haven’t seen 32 of these guys play a game, and in my mind, just counting roughly, 26 of the 32 new guys that are here are gonna be in a position to maybe contribute and help us next year,” Gundy said. “Whenever we have a personnel meeting on offense and defense, when they tell me what they think, I need to know if I agree with them.”
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Beyond that, the roster is set to jump to 123 players, based on the remainder of the 2025 recruiting class and recent transfer portal additions reporting in June. With the pending NCAA antitrust settlement expected to limit roster sizes to 105 players, that leaves Gundy with several personnel decisions to make.
“You’re gonna have to get to 105 at some point,” Gundy said. “We’ve got 8-10 guys that are right on the bubble. So the more that we can do to give each one of those young men an opportunity to solidify a spot is the right thing to do for the young man and for our program.”
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OSU football’s Mike Gundy says Cowboys will play spring game after all
