Gundy’s Not the Best Ever…Yet

In case you missed it earlier today, we looked at where Gundy stands statistically in comparison to other coaches in OSU’s history.

There are more or less 8 characteristics that make a championship-caliber division I football coach in 2011. Let’s take a look at how Gundy stacks up.

1. Controls his program – I give a ton of credit to Gundy for stripping the entire thing down early and building from scratch even if it meant going 4-7 one year removed from three straight bowls.
2. Feigns cleanliness – Do I think OSU is 100% by-the-NCAA-rule-book clean? No, and if you do then you’re delusional. But I do think Gundy has tried his best to, with honesty and integrity, keep up appearances (see: Dez/Prentiss et al.).
3. Plays CEO well – Gundy realized this somewhere between the Mizzou upset in ’08 and the Oregon game that same year. He finally figured out that to be a big time college football coach you can’t be tucked away behind the ankle taping station trying to draw Hubert Anyiam into space. It just doesn’t work like that.
4. Is an inspirational leader – I think this is where he really struggles. I mean are you fired up for this? It’s good…but not great.
5. Hire killer coaches – A+ here. I don’t know what those conversations are like (or maybe I do: “do your convenience stores sell 88 oz. Red Bulls?” “We can arrange that.”) but he’s absolutely gotten the job done.
6. Monster recruiter – This goes hand in hand with #5. I’d say they’ve done a better job finding hidden gems than luring 5-stars. Which is kind of the point when you’re OSU.
7. Marketability – I don’t know about “owns”, I think he controls his personal (and team) PR pretty well but there’s work to be done here.
8. Win games go to bowls – You could be freaking General Patton, but if you go 6-6 every year for an extended period of time, you’re getting canned. Unless you work in Waco.

The bottom line is that OSU will go to its sixth straight bowl game this year and that roll doesn’t appear to be curtailing any time soon. Gundy has seemingly done it the right way (the way Boone wants it done) and has built a program on the pillars of honesty, class, graduation, and success. You know…unless this is about us.

So is he the best ever? Not yet, I can’t give you the title when you’ve never beaten OU and aren’t the winningest coach in school history. His trajectory however seems to say that this is a foregone conclusion. Beat OU this year and/or get to the BCS and he can do the Aaron Rodgers title belt celebration all over his 6,000 square foot Stillwater home.

9-3 with a loss to OU and another Cotton Bowl trip? You’ll have to wait another year.