Kyle Whittingham and Mike Gundy were both hired 20 years ago. How have they sustained college football success?

Kyle Whittingham first conversed with Mike Gundy in April, on a stroll around Hyatt Regency Gainey Ranch Scottsdale, Arizona.

Utah’s coach was attending the Big 12 Spring Meetings, soaking in his fourth conference transition in three decades. The pair greeted each other with a casual “hello” and a brief conversation before moving on with their business. According to Whittingham, it was the first time the two have met beyond a wave or a quick verbal greeting at a coaches convention.

Their unfamiliarity is surprising given their long-tenured coaching careers, similar backgrounds, styles and consistent programs. After former Utah head coach Urban Meyer and Oklahoma State head coach Les Miles both left for the SEC in 2004, the pair of programs elevated their respective coaches from within.

On Dec. 8, 2004, the Utes made Whittingham their head man. Twenty-six days later, the Cowboys introduced Gundy, a former Pokes quarterback, as their new head coach in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The eerie similarities don’t stop there.

Both Gundy and Whittingham grew up in the state that their programs are in. They’re Nos. 5 and 6 in active Power 4 wins (Gundy with 169 and Whittingham with 165). Both Utah’s starting quarterback Cam Rising and Oklahoma State’s Alan Bowman are seventh-year seniors.

But, nearly 20 years and 334 combined wins later, the veteran coaches will finally square off for the first time when No. 12 Utah (3-0) travels to take on No. 14 Oklahoma State (3-0) at 2 p.m. MT Saturday in Stillwater.

“I’ve obviously followed his program, and he’s had a great career,” Whittingham told The Salt Lake Tribune this week. “With both of us being hired way back when, almost simultaneously, there’s been a lot of common ground with our careers. I have been well aware of the success and consistency that they’ve had.”

Gundy, too, shares a similar level of respect, even with College Football Playoff implications on the line in their upcoming game.

“We’ve both had ups and downs,” Gundy told The Tribune. “We’ve both had teams in certain years that we felt like we could compete with anybody in the country.”

So, how have Gundy and Whittingham had such a long period of success?

‘Structure and discipline’

Andy Phillips can remember arriving at Utah’s Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center every morning at 6 a.m. and finding a wide-eyed Kyle Whittingham pumping weights.

Utah’s head coach would either work out before or after his players, but Phillips, the former Utes kicker, can’t recount a day where Whittingham’s routine wavered. It served as an example for him and others trying to earn their keep and trust with the coaching staff.

It’s also a small glimpse into how the 64-year-old head coach operates on a day-to-day basis. Oftentimes he’ll lurk to the side of morning workouts alongside his assistants, garnering an understanding of each player — new or old — and how much effort they give.

Their routines, Phillips said, would dictate early trust with the assistant coaches and Whittingham. Accountability led to trust.

Trust led to buy-in from the players, which has resulted in 165 wins since 2004. Since Whittingham has joined the Utes as an assistant, 103 of his players have signed contracts with NFL teams. 60 of those players were NFL draft picks.

“Having somebody that has a consistent message, a consistent expectation, and is living what he’s preaching every single day is huge as a player,” Phillips said. “It’s nothing that he’s above or nothing that he isn’t doing himself.”

Gundy is consistent with his players too.

Andrew Mitchell, a former OSU offensive tackle from 2008-10, felt similar pressure to deliver and exceed expectations on the field. Mitchell formerly spent two seasons at Snow College in Ephraim before being recruited by the Cowboys.

There he developed into an NFL offensive tackle and is now using Gundy’s lessons as New Mexico State’s run game coordinator and offensive line coach.

“They know the ins and outs,” Mitchell said, “and know the challenges for whatever resources may or may not be available and know how to work around it to get guys that are the right kind of recruit. They know where and how these players are spinning their wheels and where they’re going to make their hay, so to speak, in recruiting.”

Looking back on his time with the Cowboys, Mitchell has vivid memories of Gundy’s consistent coaching style. One that sticks out was during a pair of the Cowboys’ 2009 Holiday Bowl practices.

In Stillwater, the temperature was frigid while Mitchell and other members of the offensive line were dragging in practice. They were cold and tired, and their arrival to the breezy shores of San Diego was days away.

After seeing their effort, Gundy stopped practice and scowled at the offensive line. “You guys are the softest offensive line in the country,” he said. The next day, Mitchell and the rest of the offensive line swapped jerseys with the quarterbacks, playing up to his demands. Gundy smirked a little before shaking his head in disappointment.

Like Whittingham, OSU’s head coach is unrelenting even in the dog days of bowl game prep.

“The two words you heard ad nauseam as a player in the building were structure and discipline,” Mitchell said. “Everything revolved around establishing that culture. And he, like any good coach, has a routine. When it came to a pregame speech, you were going to hear the same key bullet points each and every week. And I believe there’s comfort in that as a player.”

Whether it be Whittingham’s tone-setting workouts or Gundy’s emphatic, verbal scoldings, each coach has been able to define their cultures and translate them to winning.

“I think that we’re very similar, there’s a lot of similarities in who they recruit and who we recruit,” Gundy said. “We don’t get a lot of four and five-star guys, and sometimes they don’t, either. So from a distance, it looks like he prides himself on being a tough, physical team and we do the same here at Oklahoma State.”

“Coaches like Mike Gundy and Coach Whitt, they understand culture,” Phillips said. “Through all that BS they really drive through what matters.”

Smarts, loyalty, and hard work

Ron McBride phoned his former coaching colleague Charlie Dickey a few weeks ago.

Dickey, who coached with McBride at Arizona in the 1990s, discussed a slew of topics ranging from upcoming Big 12 conference games to his time at Oklahoma State.

In the phone call, the pair of old-school coaches drew parallels to the type of program Whittingham runs in Salt Lake City with the one Gundy runs in Stillwater. There’s a strong balance between family and free time for both Utah and OSU’s assistants, thanks to an ingrained trust with their respective head coaches.

“Charlie told me he has more time to spend with his family because of the head coach’s philosophy,” McBride told The Tribune. “He really enjoys the coaching part of it and knows exactly what the head coach in Mike Gundy expects.”

For Gundy and Whittingham, instilling trust with their assistant coaches is a must.

It’s allowed both to create a winning machine. The assistants recruit the right players. They evaluate and instill the culture that both Whittingham and Gundy want. Then they develop those players with hopes of maxing out their ceilings, resulting in positive play on the field.

“I try to find guys that are smart, they’re loyal ... and they’re going to work hard,” Gundy said. “If they can do those three things, then I can teach them to do anything else.”

Whittingham added: “That’s certainly been a key to our success here: great assistant coaches. You want to recruit coaches that fit your culture and what you believe in, ones that have like mindedness with what we’re trying to accomplish.”

In Salt Lake City, Whittingham rarely causes turnover in his coaching staff. From Morgan Scalley to Sharrieff Shah to Quinton Ganther to Lewis Powell and others, Utah’s head coach thinks he has the right guys to help lead his program.

Nor does Whittingham often lose a coach to another program, especially over the last few years. Part of that is creating a culture of trust. The other factor is the university and athletic administration giving the green light for competitive pay.

One example: Gary Andersen. When Andersen looks back on his time as Utah’s defensive coordinator from 2005-08, he says Whittingham rarely, if ever, overruled one of his defensive play calls. Even if they didn’t see eye to eye on their coaching philosophies, Whittingham created an environment he enjoyed and wanted to stay in.

“(His assistants) have had many, many chances to walk out of Utah,” Andersen said. “Kyle’s been able to create a work environment they like, and they’ve also been able to be in a position to keep up the pace of compensation,” Anderson said.

“That gives him a chance to be able to have a very stable, solid staff that he trusts completely.”

The same could be said for Gundy’s staff at Oklahoma State.

Former longtime Oklahoma State defensive coordinator and current Wake Forest linebackers coach Glenn Spencer looks back on his time in Stillwater fondly, despite being fired from the program in 2018.

When he first interviewed for an assistant job at OSU in 2008, Spencer remembers seeing pictures of Gundy’s family lined all over his desk. When he became the defensive coordinator in 2013, Oklahoma State’s head coach trusted Spencer to make the right calls, recruit the right players and hire the right people.

There were a few times Gundy stepped in and asked for a correction here or there, but he was mostly hands off, trusting Spencer to make the right decisions. Gundy, who gives his coaches plenty of family time, also made sure spring scrimmages were on Fridays, so each coach had more time with their families.

“When a guy like that puts full trust in you,” Spencer said, “you want to fall on the sword for him and do your best, not for yourself, but that guy. Because he’s a good person and you want to please him.”

He, too, sees similarities to Whittingham’s formula in Salt Lake City. It’s another factor, in his eyes, for Gundy and Whittingham’s two decades of success.

“Mike, and I’m sure Kyle, they just don’t waver,” Spencer said. “They’re not going to go jump off a bridge if one game doesn’t work out.”

‘It’s an anomaly now’

As college football continues to evolve, it’s rare to find tenured and successful coaches like Whittingham and Gundy.

This past offseason there were 15 different Power 4 head coaching changes, 14 Group of 5 head coaching moves and 28 different FCS head coaching hires.

Whittingham and Gundy have stayed for the long haul.

“I’ve had probably six or seven SEC offers in the last five or six, eight years, but I’m going to go back to the family side of it,” Gundy said. “I’ve got 30 family members that live within an hour of here, right? So I just chose to stay with them.”

More so than at any point in their coaching careers, they’ve become CEOs. Both have been forced to evolve to the modern era of college athletics, despite not having the NIL funds of most SEC or Big Ten programs.

Whittingham recently elevated Robert Blechen to become the general manager of Utah’s football program nearly a year ago. Gundy, more recently, lobbied for QR codes to be added to Oklahoma State’s football helmets, which would allow fans to donate to OSU’s NIL fund. (The scheme was shut down by the NCAA.)

“If you’re a coach that’s been in a long time, like Kyle and I have, and you don’t change, then you have to get out,” Gundy said. “I don’t think they’re going to get that player revenue deal settled, in my opinion. So we’re a year away from them being employees and essentially publicly making big money.”

“You can’t fight, but if you try to fight it, you’re going to lose. And so you’ve got to be able to change with the times, just like any other profession,” Whittingham said.

That’s why when both Utah and Oklahoma State step on the field Saturday, it’ll be more than just another ranked matchup.

It’s a battle of two head coaches who represent a dying breed of college football.

Both Whittingham and Gundy know it.

“I think the number of coaches who stay at one place anywhere near as long as we have is going to be very rare in the future,” Gundy said. “Because what happens is, college football is now turned into a business with very, very large sums of money involved.”

Whittingham agrees.

“He hit it right on the head,” Whittingham said. “I don’t know if you’ll ever see, going forward, coaches that stay double digit years at the same university.”

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