Is Gundy the Best OSU Coach Ever?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is, as it usually must be, “it’s complicated.”

Let’s take a look…

Despite being only the ninth longest tenured head coach in school history (four others also coached for six years), Gundy already has the third most wins (47) and the best winning percentage of those who have coached sixty or more games.

He trails only Jim Lookabaugh (58 wins) and Pat Jones (62 wins) and will easily pass each of them by the end of the 2012 season (and might pass Lookabaugh this year). Lynn Waldorf’s record winning percentage of .735 might be the Cy Young wins total of OSU records, but it also came during an era (1929-1933) when the forward pass was frowned upon as well as those of non-Caucasian races playing this game that is now so integrated, both into our culture and by our culture.

For reference’s sake: let’s say Gundy goes 11-2 every year for the next six years (about as likely as LeBryan Nash playing four years of basketball in Stillwater) he would still only have a .733 winning percentage. He’d be one of the top ten (or five) coaches in the sport in 2016, but still Waldorf’s record would stand.

So those are the statistics, but you know what Mark Twain says about college football statistics from various eras in the 20th century…

Here’s a closer look at this empirically…