Good article on how Gundy found Yurcich

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Gundy‘s challenge boils down to this: Would any Power 5 coach conduct a coordinator search that begins on the internet, includes several phone calls to a football office where no one answers and ends in a Pennsylvania hotel lobby with a young Division II coach making $52,500 a year?


Pretty humbling experience,” Yurcich said. “It‘s very unique. It doesn‘t happen, and I‘ve got to try to capitalize on the opportunity given.”

When Gundy began searching for an offensive coordinator after the 2012 season, he sought two qualities: talent and anonymity. He was tired of losing assistants.

Todd Monken had left for the Southern Miss head-coaching job after two record-setting seasons with Oklahoma State. Monken followed Dana Holgorsen, who spent the 2010 season as the Pokes‘ OC before taking the West Virginia job. Since becoming Oklahoma State‘s coach in 2005, Gundy had only one offensive coordinator last longer than two years — Larry Fedora logged three seasons before becoming head coach at Southern Miss.

“I said, ‘Forget this. I‘m going to go find somebody that nobody will want for a while,‘” Gundy said. “And I got lucky, and it worked out great for us, and it solved and/or ended the issue I was concerned about.”

Under coordinator Mike Yurcich, Oklahoma State leads the nation in passing and ranks third in scoring and second in total offense. Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics

Gundy went online and looked up offenses that excelled both with rushing and passing numbers. He then narrowed the search to no-huddle, tempo-based offenses similar to Oklahoma State‘s. Next, he found coordinators who also coached quarterbacks. The last step, the trickiest, was identifying lesser-known coaches who might stick around even after successful seasons.

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