Roundtable: Debating Our Top 25 Teams Since 2000

FULL TOP 25

Who’s in your Top 25?

With the first half of Oklahoma State’s quarter-century sports season in the books, the PFB staff convened in an effort to narrow down the Top 25 OSU sports teams since 2000. It was a fun (and ultimately difficult) exercise that recent addition Tyler Waldrep came up with. You can check out the full list here.

But with all the shuffling and debate and apples-to-oranges comparisons, we thought it’d be a good idea for the three of us to get together and hash it out.

After compiling our list to a specific Top 20 (the PFB+ forum voted on the final five), we stepped back and asked three questions, discussed them and took a vote. The following Roundtable is what resulted.

Topic 1: Who is No. 1?

Marshall: Alright, let’s get cracking. Starting with Who is No. 1?

Kyle: I had the 2011 football team as my No. 1 for several reasons. Most of all, they were as dominant an OSU football team as I’ve ever seen. Couple that with their importance to OSU athletics in general and it’s a no-brainer. 

Marshall: I think it should quite obviously be the 2004-05 wrestling team. The Cowboys had five of 10 national champions and had seven of 10 Big 12 champions.

Kyle: I understand everything you are saying, and I picked 05 Wrestling as my No. 2, but I have to take into account the way that FB team elevated sports in Stillwater.

Marshall: Every year the national champs take a picture, and the one from ’05 looked more like an OSU team photo.

Tyler: Wrestling was a machine long before the 2005 team dominated the sport. While their accomplishments are impressive it doesn’t come close to what football did in 2011.

Marshall: Just naming a few, that ’05 wrestling team featured:

Johny Hendricks — two-time national champ who later became a UFC champ
Chris Pendleton — two-time national champ
Jake Roshholt — a three-time NCAA champ
Steve Mocco — two-time NCAA champ

Tyler: Those multi-time champions are exactly the reason I give the nod to football.

Marshall: If we’re talking about the most important team from OSU since 2000, I’ll give you the 2011 football team with little debate. If we’re talking best team, it has to be this wrestling squad.

Tyler: I think we all agree that wrestling won the 2000s by a large margin overall, but we’re debating specific teams. That 2011 football team moved Oklahoma State from a Big 12 dark horse to a nationally relevant program.

If not for arguably the best defensive performance the sport has ever seen from Alabama-LSU that same season then I think Oklahoma State still gets the nod even with the late loss. But the Alabama-LSU felt more of a tie the first time around and had the better part of a month to push voters to give those teams a chance at a rematch.

Marshall: So because that OSU team was so good, it should be behind another team?

Kyle: You misspelled “worst offensive performance” @Tyler Waldrep.

Tyler: Move that 2011 Oklahoma State team to almost any other season, and it’s hard to believe they don’t get a shot in the title game and college football might be the hardest sport to contend for a national championship because the sport is by design not fair and unforgiving.

Marshall: I’m willing to be outvoted while also recognizing that I’m on the right side of history.

Tyler: Can’t let Kyle sidetrack me with NFL Draft stats on those teams… My favorite game ever to watch.

Kyle: oof.

Tyler: To address Marshall’s best argument, yes I think it matters how successful these programs were before.

I think milestones should matter. Seasons that push programs further should matter.

Otherwise let’s just give wrestling nine out of the top 10 spots or whatever and call it a day because the program is incredible.

Marshall: “Sorry OSU wrestling, you’re too good, which is why you’re No. 2.” Is a helluva argument to be made, in my opinion.

Kyle: 2011 FB was the crowning achievement, thus far, of OSU’s most successful coach in college’s most influential program. Plus, Bedlam.

Tyler: If we had a 12-team playoff in 2011, Oklahoma State gets a home game against the SEC’s what fifth-best team? Probably beats them badly then has a great chance at making the national championship game.  In that world I think the argument I made sounds better, but I don’t think 2011 FB should be punished for being dominant in the worst year any team could have picked.

Even in the BCS that team was good enough for a title shot.

I vote 2011 Football and hope I’m still allowed in for wrestling meets next season…

Marshall: If there was an NCAA wrestling tournament that year, OSU would have five national champions and almost double every other team’s team score … oh wait, that happened.

Vote:

Marshall: 2004-05 Wrestling
Kyle: 2011 Football
Tyler: 2011 Football

Topic No. 2: Hardest to Rank

Tyler: Which team or teams were hardest to rank?

Marshall: For me, it was 2021 football. It was tough to rank it among the other football teams. The Cowboys had 12 wins for just the second time in program history, but I think if in some interdimensional vacuum if the 2017 team played the 2021 team, I’d take the 2017 team. But I can’t look past a Fiesta Bowl and a Big 12 title game appearance, so I ultimately put the 2021 Pokes ahead of the 2017 Pokes.

Kyle: I had a tough time there too. The defense was otherworldly but the offense could be head-scratchingly frustrating to watch, especially based on OSU’s brand and how good Jim Knowles’ defense was. Also, one more yard in Arlington and who knows where this team lands.

Marshall: Maybe I look back at the 2017 team with orange-tinted glasses since it was my senior year, but that 2021 team just had a weird start to the year until Jaylen Warren started rolling. It started the year with three straight one-score wins against Missouri State, Tulsa and Boise State. But the defense was so good all year, that it deserves its spot above the others on the list.

Tyler: That team beat Baylor somewhat soundly the first time around and finished with three wins over teams ranked inside the final AP top 10.

To be clear I’m not arguing which team would win head-to-head.

Personally, I found men’s golf the toughest to rank on this list.

Easily the second-best program for OSU in the 2000s. To win titles in 2000 and 2025 while winning and competing for others in between shows consistency that borders on utter dominance.

That said, the sport changed postseason formats during this time which made it tough for me to compare any of these teams to each other. Plus, golf’s regular season doesn’t make it easy to evaluate how good these teams.

I tended to prioritize the earlier championships more often because I felt like winning those helped later teams out from a recruiting standpoint and I assume it was easier getting other resources like money.

Kyle: Hard to rank could apply to most of the slots on this list, but I think these two stick out to me so I’ll piggyback off both Marshall and Tyler.

The 2021 FB team is a conundrum. Not quite as big a what-if as a certain missed FG (was it?) in Ames but pretty close. Gundy’s 21 team was a different animal in all kinds of ways (good and bad).

To Tyler’s point, OSU Golf was a challenge, and not just because the years are melding together as I age. (I was appalled when Marshall mentioned that Viktor Hovland and Matthew Wolff turned pro in 2019).

But I think I lean slightly with Marsh on this one.

Vote:

Marshall: 2021 Football
Kyle: 2021 Football
Tyler: Men’s Golf

Topic No. 3: Hated to Leave Out

Marshall: Which team did you hate leaving out of your initial list of 20?

Kyle: My high school self had a hard time leaving out the 2000 Elite Eight Cowboy Hoops squad. That’s the same Kyle that had Desmond Mason and Doug Gottleib newspaper clippings (old) taped to my bedroom wall. 

One of my greatest sports experiences was being crammed in the aisle and feeling GIA absolutely shaking when Dez and Co. ran it up on a ranked Kansas team in 2000. Unforgettable memory and now I’m second-guessing my vote. I’d like to move them to No. 1.

Marshall: I had a hard time trying to find a way for the women’s basketball 2007-08 team to get on the list. That Kurt Budke team finished 27-8 and made an appearance in the Sweet 16. Andrea Riley averaged 23 points a game en route to All-America honors. It came down to it being tough to put a team that finished in the top 16 above squads that finished closer to the top of their respective sport.

Tyler: Time to earn my way back into David Taylor’s post-match press conferences next season…

I thought the 2024-25 Oklahoma State wrestling team was the hardest one to leave outside my personal top 20.

I thought David Taylor’s first team would be good, but I didn’t expect a borderline historic level of dominance for most of the regular season followed by its highest placement since 2021 and best point total since 2017.

I haven’t even mentioned Hodge Trophy winner Wyatt Hendrickson yet… I got calls from around the country because Wyatt won that match. And I’m just a guy who interviewed him a couple times so I can only imagine what his phone looked like.

My expectations for David Taylor’s second team are officially through the roof.

Vote:

Marshall: 2007-08 Cowgirl Hoops
Kyle: 1999-00 Cowboy Hoops
Tyler: 2024-25 Wrestling