Mike Gundy Explains Oklahoma State's Redshirting Strategies
Oklahoma State is looking to stake its claim as the premier team in the Big 12, and how it handles redshirting can prove significant.
In college football, players can play up to four games and still maintain a redshirt, with any postseason games not counting against them. Most times, this will leave young players an opportunity to play at the beginning or end of a season while maintaining all four seasons of eligibility.
As OSU coach Mike Gundy continues to adapt to the changes in the sport, finding ways to communicate with players about redshirting is key.
You always, first and foremost, want to do what you think is best for the young man and what he wants to do,” Gundy said. “Now, those two don’t always jive together.”
Of course, every situation is different, but most will feature a player who wants to be on the field. Sometimes, a redshirt is the result of limited opportunities or a plan to keep their remaining eligibility unscathed.
“Second, we ask, ‘What’s best for the team?’” Gundy said. “Years ago, coaches made that determination. Over the last three, four, five years, there’s a mutual conversation between the player, their family, their representatives and the coaches as you move forward.
One of the best examples under the four-game redshirt rules at OSU came last season with Leon Johnson III. In 2023, Johnson came to Stillwater with the intention of redshirting.
After playing some early in the year, he planned to spend the rest of the season practicing and getting ready for 2024 as he looked to make a run at the NFL. However, injuries arose and caused him to burn his redshirt when he played his fifth game in early November against Oklahoma.
“We’d love to have (Leon Johnson III) back, but at that point, we were on a run and had a chance to get in the Big 12 Championship game, and we would not have gotten in it without him,” Gundy said. “But he also had to make a commitment to a team. We talked to him; we had the discussion. At first, I still think he wanted to redshirt, and then he finally said, ‘OK, I’ll play.’”
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IVAN WHITE
Ivan is a sports media student at Oklahoma State University. He has covered OSU athletics since 2022 and also covers the OKC Thunder for Inside The Thunder and Thunderous Intentions.