Oklahoma State Debuts at No. 10 in AP Poll

After coming in at No. 11 in the preseason Coaches Poll, Oklahoma State is No. 10 in the first AP Poll of the 2017 season. These of course mean nothing when it comes to post season play — that is, if you believe all voters for the CFB Playoffs disregard polls and only evaluate what’s happening on the field ? — but they’re still fun to talk about.

This is just OSU’s third time in the Gundy era to start in the top 10 of the AP Poll. In its previous 91 seasons before Gundy, it did it exactly zero times.

Here is the full AP top 25.

Here’s a look at where the Pokes have started each season of the Mike Gundy era. In the previous two seasons in which OSU was ranked inside the top 10 to start the year, they finished unranked (2009) and No. 3 (2011) to end the season.

How does head coach Mike Gundy evaluate these rankings?

“I think that preseason polls have a lot to do with returning quarterbacks that have experience, and we’re the same,” said Gundy recently. “When you go into the season and you don’t have a quarterback that has any experience, you don’t have a clue what’s going to happen in most cases.

“So for me, what I said a second ago is exactly what I told the team. We have experience at key positions on both sides of the ball. We have an experienced quarterback, we have skill players that are potentially good enough to someday play in the NFL and we have numbers of depth that have played on both sides. So for that reason, you guys should play well this year. That’s really how I believe it. I always tell (the team) that. I say ‘You guys have a lot of ground to make up here because we don’t have a lot of experience,’ but with these guys, they have to do all of the things that are important to get ready to play.

“But they know that if they prepare and do everything they can and are unselfish and committed, then my expectations of them are to play very well on Saturdays. I don’t see any reasons why they shouldn’t.”