Eight Thoughts on the Oklahoma State Fan Survey Results

OKC Dave has once again produced his monstrous preview of the 2019-20 OSU school year through the eyes of you, the fan. We posted the results here, but I wanted to dive into eight quick thoughts I had on the subject.

1. We are kind of amazing at predicting this football team

Granted, it’s not the hardest thing in the world given OSU’s success and easy calls every year like Kansas, Tulsa and OU, but I was still stunned by this number.

Over the last 11 surveys, fans have predicted a total of 95 wins (94.8 to be precise). The team has won 96 games over that time period. The most we have missed the mark is roughly 2 games on three occasions: 2010, 2012, and 2018.

Off by one game over a decade?! That’s astounding.

2. Bedlam blues

As Dave pointed out, I think everybody has come around on the Bedlam stuff. It’s just … not happening. These numbers of what percentage of fans predict a Bedlam victory are tough to look at.

At 34%, the Bedlam game is the lowest number for any home game since the Big 12 moved to 10 teams. On the one hand, this is realistic – OU is obviously one of the best programs in college football. On the other hand, is our spirit broken?

I think it may be broken.

3. How to measure an offense?

My question is not why you think a statistically-excellent offense is going to be better with two unproven QBs, but by what measure you guys use to begin with. OSU was 18th in the country last year in points per drive and — as Dave noted — top 12 in SAP+ and FEI. So is it simply anecdotal? Empirical? The way they make you feel? The fact that Mike Yurcich is gone?

4. Down on Gundy

It’s a conundrum. Always will be. He’s an unbelievable head coach for Oklahoma State. He’s also a lousy recruiter. Here’s a look at where we ranked him in a variety of categories.

I think we’re actually giving him a little too much credit when it comes to recruiting and maybe not enough when it comes to player development and hiring assistants. Regardless, as Dave pointed out, Gundy’s overall rating based on these six categories dipped to its lowest spot since he started asking the questions.

I don’t think Gundy himself would be surprised by this. He knows last year sucked. He knows the bar he set for himself is high and he constantly has to clear it to keep all the goodwill he’s engendered. He knows you have to feed the monster, and he stopped feeding it at some point in 2018 (or before). We maybe haven’t talked about this enough, but this feels like a big year in a lot of ways for Gundy. Not in terms of being fired or being on the hot seat but in terms of what his long-term legacy is in Stillwater.

It feels mostly cemented — as it should — but so often we remember how people close out a career rather than what happened in the time leading up to that. As Gundy gets closer to retirement, I suspect that will be true of the way we view him as well.

5. Gundy … 6th

Tough deal for MG here. He’s the best coach in school history (by a wide margin) in the most important college sport … and he’s behind somebody who we think is probably really good at recruiting.

6. Holy Boynton!

???

7. PFB is Gundy … Gundy is PFB

Tom Emansky would be proud of our back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back titles. Hopefully we can bump that number back up above 4.5 by this time next year (hopefully Gundy can, too).

8. The WR rankings

This is the proper way to rank the receivers. I actually think Tylan could surpass The President at some point, but it’s hard to usurp that kind of longevity.