STILLWATER, Okla. — Dec. 15, 2021. It’s a date that Bryan Nardo still thinks about. On that day, he was out of a job after getting fired at Youngstown State.

Two years later, he’s the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State. He’s days away from coaching in a Big 12 championship game.

“I will remember that day for a while,” Nardo said. “But if that doesn’t happen, I’m not here.”

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When something as serendipitous as this job pops up and changes your life, how can you not believe everything happens for a reason?

Cowboys coach Mike Gundy plucked an unknown young coach from Gannon University, a Division II school, believing he had the scheme and the smarts to bring to Stillwater the odd front defense that Big 12 foes have popularized. He’d searched all over the country and eventually found a 38-year-old in Erie, Pa., who knew his stuff.

It was a serious gamble by Gundy, a risk that could’ve wrecked Oklahoma State’s season. The Cowboys’ defense hasn’t been spectacular, but their new DC has them winning in the moments that matter most.

The wild story of how Nardo ended up here adds a new chapter on Saturday, when he goes up against Steve Sarkisian, one of the best offensive minds in football, and his No. 7 Texas squad chasing a College Football Playoff bid. The No. 18 Cowboys got this far with a coordinator who had never been a full-time coach at this level, one making one-third of the salary of Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski.

Nardo has never been to AT&T Stadium in Arlington. He has never coached in a game of this magnitude. There’s no challenge greater than what’s next. But after being given this absurdly fortunate opportunity, Nardo is going to give everything he’s got.

“Our goal is to compete at the highest level,” he said. “We’re not going to be shocked when that happens.”

GO DEEPER

How an on-field adjustment — and Mike Gundy’s change — transformed Oklahoma State

Gundy had a clear mission when he began his defensive coordinator search: He wanted Iowa State’s defense.

“There’s only like five guys in the country that know the system,” Gundy said. “It’s crazy. You can count ’em on one hand.”

Jon Heacock’s odd front scheme has been thriving against Big 12 offenses since 2017. Last winter Gundy interviewed Philadelphia Eagles defensive backs coach D.K. McDonald, a former Cyclones assistant, but the Eagles were heading to the Super Bowl. NC State’s Tony Gibson has long run a similar 3-3-5 stack defense; Gundy says Kansas State got its package from Gibson. TCU has its own version under Joe Gillespie. But as far as Gundy could tell, that’s about it. He talked to anybody he could, even high school coaches, to learn all about it.

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Joe Bob Clements, one of Gundy’s longtime defensive assistants, knew about another coach down in the Division II ranks who ran the scheme. Gundy had never heard of Gannon, didn’t know where it was and didn’t know how to find its film. But he kept hunting and did his homework.

He learned Nardo came from small-town Shadyside, Ohio. His father and two brothers were coaches. He got his start as a student coach and graduate assistant at Ohio under Frank Solich and spent most of his young career calling the defense at Emporia State, a D-II program in Kansas. Clements and Nardo had stayed in touch over the past few years. Gundy heard enough good things to make the phone call.

Most Division II coaches receiving that random call from a Stillwater, Okla., number would probably think it’s a prank. That’s what former Oklahoma State OC Mike Yurcich assumed when Gundy contacted him at D-II Shippensburg in early 2013.

“I called him and he goes, ‘No it’s not, you’re s—ing me,’” Gundy said. “I’m like, no, this is Coach Gundy. He’s like, ‘Quit f—ing with me.’ No, really, it’s me.”

Gundy told Nardo he wanted to talk football and offered to fly him in for a visit. Nardo and Gannon head coach Erik Raeburn joked that he might be getting catfished. Once the plane ticket hit his inbox, it started to seem real. Gundy never said anything about auditioning for a defensive coordinator vacancy. Maybe they were looking for an analyst?

“I remember Bryan saying to me, ‘You think this is an interview?’” Raeburn said.

Gundy set him up in a conference room at a hotel near the Oklahoma City airport. He brought his defensive assistants — Clements, Greg Richmond, Tim Duffie and Dan Hammerschmidt — into the meeting as well. Nardo admits he didn’t fully realize it was an interview until he walked into the room. His instructions: Teach us your defense. Talk through a Day 1 install like you would with a freshman. Six hours of instruction went by in a blur.

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“The best part was I wasn’t nervous because I was talking about my defense,” Nardo said. “You can tell me you don’t agree with it. You can’t tell me I’m wrong.”

Five and a half hours in, Gundy was sold. He tested Nardo, drawing up offensive scenarios and asking how he’d defend them. Nardo didn’t pretend to have all the answers and calmly worked through each problem. Gundy appreciated that. He saw a highly intelligent young coach who knew his stuff.

“I was like, ‘This guy’s the best guy,’” Gundy said. “I don’t care if he came from Dallas Junior High. He’s the best guy.”

In that way, Gundy is unlike the majority of his head coaching peers. He did not need an expensive splash hire. Whether the choice is popular or not was inconsequential. He knew what he needed and was going to do the search himself and hire who he liked.

Gundy called a few nights later to offer the job. Nardo was so excited to get to work that he forgot to say yes. He won’t soon forget the stunned look on his wife’s face as she held their 7-month-old son Elijah while he wrapped up the call.

“I hung up the phone and said, ‘Oh my goodness. This is real life,’” Nardo said.

Nardo made a little over $60,000 at Gannon. With one phone call, he became a Power 5 defensive coordinator making $650,000. Welcome to the big leagues.

After eight years at Emporia State, Nardo felt ready for the next step. He wanted to be a Division II head coach. He wasn’t getting those calls.

One athletic director was kind enough to tell him the truth: Too many years at one school makes your coaching career look stagnant.

“That frustrated me,” Nardo said, “and I probably let it get to me a little bit too much.”

So when he was approached in 2020 about a job coaching linebackers at Youngstown State, he went for it. The job brought him back to his home state, and he hoped moving up for a stint at the FCS level would make him more qualified in the eyes of ADs. He tried one of the riskier things you can do in this industry: Go to work for people you don’t know.

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At the end of his second year there, Nardo finally got an interview for a D-II head coach job: Southwestern Oklahoma State. Youngstown State coach Doug Phillips wasn’t happy about it. Their defensive coordinator warned Nardo: “Brother, you better get the job.” Nardo still pursued the job and interviewed on the Monday before signing day.

He learned on Wednesday morning that he wasn’t getting the head job. Thirty minutes later, Phillips fired him.

“The head coach felt like he wanted more loyalty in the program and wanted someone that he felt was a little bit more committed to staying there,” Nardo said. “It’s his program. He did what he felt was best for his program.”

One of the many peers who offered their condolences that day was Clements. Nardo still remembers his message: Congratulations. You’re officially a football coach. In this business, everybody gets fired eventually. But Nardo was still stunned.

“It’s very scary,” he said. “It was a pretty dark time. It makes you doubt yourself.”

The timing wasn’t great. His wife, Emma, was pregnant with Elijah at the time. She works in physical therapy, and her hours were getting cut back. Looking back, he’s grateful for all the people who looked out for them. You find out who your true friends are when you’re going through firing season. With their help, he lined up five interviews within two days.

One sit-down with Raeburn validated that Gannon was where he belonged. Funny enough, Raeburn had the same idea as Gundy. He played and coached at D-III powerhouse Mount Union and has followed fellow alum Matt Campbell’s Iowa State teams closely. He wanted their defense. Making the 100-mile move meant Nardo would get to be a DC again, and he’d been working on an odd front playbook in his final season at Emporia, inspired by a trip to Ames, Iowa, to learn from the best.

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Nardo visited Iowa State in the summer of 2019 to sit down with Heacock and break down film. They were two Ohio Valley guys with a few connections. Nardo’s brother had been a GA for Heacock’s brother at D-III Muskingum College. What attracted him to the Cyclones’ defense? It’s simple: Nardo saw a viral video of an Iowa State run fit against Oklahoma’s offense and had a light bulb moment. “One clip,” he said. “I knew that’s exactly what I wanted.” He studied their scheme throughout the winter. When he got his meeting with Heacock, he told the veteran DC, “Here’s what I think. Tell me how far off I am.” Heacock was happy to help.

“He’s a bona fide genius,” Nardo said.

Nardo took those lessons back to Emporia and eventually rebuilt his entire defense. When he got to Gannon, he spent the offseason fine-tuning to get it just right. And he got results. The Golden Knights went 8-3 and almost made the D-II playoffs with a defense that improved in nearly every category. What made the defense so much better, Raeburn said, was Nardo’s gift for connecting with players and building up their confidence. “The way he coached our players made a much bigger impact than the actual scheme,” Raeburn said. Nardo called it one of the most fun years he’s had in coaching. They bought a home in Erie and had no desire to leave.

“Going to Gannon is what made me believe in myself,” Nardo said. “Going to Gannon allowed me to run this defense. And I’m not getting a call from Coach Gundy if I’m not running this defense.”

“After coaching with him for a little bit, I knew we were not gonna be able to keep him very long,” Raeburn said. “I just thought he would get a D-II head coaching job. That’s how I thought we’d lose him. I didn’t see a Big 12 D-coordinator job popping up and stealing him away.”

TODAY’S THE WORST WE’LL EVER BE.

The sign hangs over the door in Nardo’s new office. He looks up to the message day after day. The quote came from Mike Rose, the former head coach of his high school St. John Central. Nardo finds purpose in the message: Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, find a way to be better tomorrow.

It’s a fitting mantra for an Oklahoma State defense that has been just good enough to pull off this run to a 9-3 season.

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If you judged them by their stats, you’d wonder how the Cowboys got this far. They are eighth in the Big 12 in scoring defense, second-worst in total defense and in the bottom 20 nationally in yards per play. Explosive plays have burned them. They’ve given up 18 touchdowns of 30-plus yards, most among all Power 5 defenses. Give up too many of those and you’re liable to get blown out like they did against UCF (45-3) and South Alabama (33-7). There have been moments during this season when Pokes fans questioned whether Gundy whiffed on his defensive coordinator hire.

But today’s the worst they’ll ever be. They got better after the bad days. After a 2-2 start to the season, Oklahoma State’s staff went into an idle week and got it fixed. They’ve won seven of eight since then, and Nardo has proved he can make sharp in-game adjustments along the way. In the Cowboys’ nine wins, they’ve outscored opponents 180-77 in the second half.

They did it again on Saturday against BYU to clinch the Big 12 title game berth. This team trailed by 18 at halftime. Then the defense allowed just three points and 100 yards in the second half, forcing six consecutive punts to give the offense a chance. And in double overtime, they delivered the win when safety Trey Rucker forced a game-ending fumble.

“They don’t ever flinch,” Nardo said. “They don’t ever doubt. I could not have asked for a better group.”

The first-year DC has tried to operate the same way. Gundy doesn’t hesitate to bring questions and criticism to defensive meetings. Nardo doesn’t take it the wrong way. His calm, composed demeanor has served him well during this bumpy first ride together as they adjust on the go.

“On game days, he’s been excellent,” Gundy said. “He’s learning and growing.”

Twelve of their top 22 contributors on defense are sophomores or freshmen. That youth has challenged Nardo to stick to running what his best 22 can go out and execute at a high level. You can’t put in more than they can handle, but you also can’t get predictable. The further they get into this season, the more comfortable they look. They’ve grabbed 18 takeaways in Big 12 play, second-most in the league. That’s a byproduct of players starting to understand how to play fast and hit hard in this odd front attack.

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“Their effort solves a lot of problems,” Nardo said. “They play so unbelievably hard and they believe. They trust and they love each other and they play for each other.”

They sure believed in a 27-24 win over Oklahoma. The Sooners hit big plays, but the Cowboys’ defense had the right answers on third downs and got nine stops, including three takeaways. The game was won by true freshman safety Dylan Smith stopping senior receiver Drake Stoops on a fourth down. Nardo, the new guy in the room, found out what a big deal the final Bedlam rivalry game was for these coaches, players and fans. The experience, he said, was like so much of this year: surreal.

“If I ever get off the elevator here and I’m not blown away by the fact I get to work here, everybody has my permission to punch me in the face,” Nardo said. “This is an unbelievable place.”

A year ago, the big rival he needed to beat was Mercyhurst. How different was preparing for a top-10 Oklahoma team? He insists it’s all relative, that there are good coaches and players wherever you go. One big difference: He’s never worked with this many people before. Gannon had four defensive coaches. Their cornerbacks coach was also the video coordinator. As Nardo put it, he no longer has to set up his own trash cans at practice.

Recruiting is a whole new world, too. Division II schools get 36 scholarships, not 85. At Gannon, their field safety was a great athlete but was 5-foot-9. At Emporia State, if a high schooler had more than 3 FCS offers, they probably weren’t landing him. In this job, he can go get the ideal athlete for every spot in his defense without settling. From that standpoint, he’s just getting started.

There’s no next stop on his mind, no D-II head job he needs. After these past few years, the Nardos would love to stop moving. He says he’ll be here until the head coach down the hall tells him to leave. Gundy took a dramatic leap of faith in January by hiring him. On Saturday, he can prove these big-time moments aren’t too big for a small-college coach.

Nobody’s expecting the underdogs to beat Texas. Nardo is going to keep believing he’s here for a reason. And why wouldn’t he? Over these last two years, he’s seen crazier things occur.

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“Anything can happen,” Nardo said.

(Top photo: Brian Bahr / Getty Images)