Sunday delivered one of the wildest coaching carousel rides in recent college football memory - a day that felt like it was ripped straight from a drama series, complete with last-minute decisions, fan uproar, and a whole lot of jet tracking. And while much of the country was caught in the chaos, Oklahoma State sat quietly on the sidelines - and that might’ve been the biggest win of all.
Let’s start with the headliner: Lane Kiffin. After days of speculation and back-and-forth meetings with Ole Miss leadership, Kiffin finally made his move, choosing LSU over staying put or heading to Florida. That one decision lit the fuse on a chain reaction across the college football landscape.
Once Kiffin’s decision went public, the dominoes started to fall - fast. Jon Sumrall left Tulane to take the Florida job.
Alex Golesh made the jump from USF to Auburn. Ryan Silverfield was tapped by Arkansas after his run at Memphis.
And Pete Golding, Ole Miss’ defensive coordinator, was promoted to fill the head coaching vacancy in Oxford.
Meanwhile, two other Power Conference programs hit the reset button. Michigan State parted ways with Jonathan Smith after just two seasons, and Kentucky decided it was time to move on from Mark Stoops after a 13-year tenure in Lexington. That’s a lot of movement in one day - even by college football standards.
And through it all? Oklahoma State stayed cool, calm, and collected.
The Cowboys had already made their move, securing their next head coach well before the Sunday madness began. Athletic Director Chad Weiberg got out in front of the chaos, locking in his guy early and avoiding the feeding frenzy that unfolded across the SEC and beyond. No drama, no public negotiations, no awkward airport scenes - just a clean, efficient hire that left the OSU fanbase feeling confident and, more importantly, unified.
Contrast that with what’s happening elsewhere. Arkansas fans are split on the Silverfield hire, and in Gainesville, some Florida faithful are experiencing a case of déjà vu. Hiring another Group of Five coach out of Louisiana is stirring up memories of the Billy Napier experiment - and not necessarily in a good way.
Oklahoma State also managed to sidestep one of the trickiest parts of the modern coaching carousel: the compressed calendar. With bowl games and the College Football Playoff looming, programs are now forced to make hires while their candidates are still coaching elsewhere.
OSU handled that with poise, allowing their new head coach to finish the season at North Texas. That’s a move that shows respect for both programs - and it’s a stark contrast to the Kiffin situation, where his inability to coach Ole Miss in the Playoff only added fuel to an already volatile fire.
Sure, there are trade-offs. Not having your new coach on campus full-time yet isn’t ideal.
But if Morris and North Texas make a run to the CFP, that spotlight could turn into a marketing win for Oklahoma State - a program that hasn’t had a ton of national buzz in the past couple of seasons. A deep postseason run by their incoming coach could be the kind of positive exposure OSU’s been looking for.
Just a week before Thanksgiving, there wasn’t much for Cowboys fans to hang their hats on. But by the Sunday after, they were sitting back with a plate of leftovers and a sense of calm that was hard to come by anywhere else in the country. While the rest of the sport was caught in a whirlwind of coaching changes, Oklahoma State had already made its move - and made it well.
In a sport where timing is everything and chaos is the norm, Oklahoma State played it smart, stayed ahead of the curve, and came out looking like one of the few programs that had a plan - and stuck to it.