Pat Kinnison - Pokes Report chief photographer
All Quiet on the Coaching Staff Front
STILLWATER -- The cool thing, the blogging, internet, or clickbait thing to do is throw out some rumors and see if they stick, but after checking around all is quiet on the Stillwater front. There is still a lot of message board reports back East with regards to Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson being a strong candidate for the offensive coordinator job at Rutgers.
My gut feeling is that could go either way. Gleeson and his wife seem to really like Stillwater and the family vibe around the football program. Also, as several coaches that have served on the Gundy staff have noted, including one veteran coach that told me he wished he had worked for Gundy his entire coaching career and that he can't imagine why anybody would want to leave unless it was for a lot more money or becoming a head coach yourself. Gundy allows his coaches to be husbands and fathers and not keep mandatory hours in the office.
That could be along with the long-term contract (I've been told five years by multiple sources) and bump in salary and duties, a big part of the reason that it appears Kasey Dunn is staying on the Cowboys staff.
I know there are many sources out there that want you to believe they are tapped into the football office and what is going to happen next, but I can guarantee you they are not. A lot of the social media speculation is the same stuff running through different veins of the same network.
Todd Monken is a close friend of Mike Gundy. Their families often vacation together. Monken's son is the same age as Gunnar Gundy and while Gunnar is enrolled and will be a part-time student starting in January, Monken's son, Travis, is expected to enroll as a freshman at Oklahoma State next fall. It would make sense if Monken doesn't wind up with a new opportunity in the NFL, either staying for a new head coach in Cleveland or going somewhere else that he would be in Stillwater. He could be a senior analyst on offense and collect his compensation owed from the Browns. It would be a situation similar to what another former Cowboys offensive coordinator did this season as Larry Fedora collected his buyout from North Carolina while serving as an analyst for Tom Herman at Texas.
We'll keep an eye on everything, but the critical date is January 16 as the dead period following holidays, bowl games, and the coaches convention ends on that date. At that time every school is going to want to be fully staffed and ready to hit the road recruiting the finish of the 2020 class and jumping ahead for the 2021 class.
