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Let’s talk about the best programs in the country

Don’t look now but OSU has more wins than all but seven other BCS teams over the last five years.

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Sustained success seems to be the buzziest of all the buzz words when you’re talking about building a college athletics program, especially a football-specific one. Anybody can do it for one year (Kansas won an Orange Bowl!) but can you do it for three years or five years or a decade?

That’s what Mike Gundy has been working on for a while now and we’re starting to see some of the fruits of that labor. Here are the only 10 teams to win 50+ games over the last five years. The 10/50 Club as I like to call it.

2009-2013

Rank Team Games Wins Losses
1 Alabama 67 60 7
2 Boise State 66 57 9
3 Oregon 66 57 9
4 Stanford 67 54 13
5 Northern Illinois 69 53 16
6 LSU 66 53 13
7 tOSU 65 53 12
8 FSU 68 52 16
9 OU 66 51 15
10 Oklahoma State 65 50 15

A couple of things here. First, nobody wins 60 games in five years. That’s a joke. Alabama is a joke. Second, Oklahoma State actually has a slightly better winning percentage than Florida State does (76.9 percent to 76.5 percent).

And what a list to be on!

Any time you can say “hey, we’re in the same group as these BCS teams: Alabama, Oregon, Stanford, LSU, Ohio State, Florida State, and OU” and the groups aren’t organized by “teams that get away with cheating in college football” that’s a pretty incredible thing.

Better than squads like Clemson, Nebraska, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Auburn, and Michigan.

But it goes back even farther than this. Here’s a look at the last seven years.

2007-2013

Rank Team Games Wins Losses
1 Alabama 94 79 15
2 Boise State 92 79 13
3 Oregon 92 76 16
4 OU 94 74 20
5 tOSU 91 74 17
6 LSU 93 73 20
7 Virginia Tech 95 68 27
8 FSU 94 68 26
9 USC 91 67 24
10 Cincinnati 91 66 25
11 Oklahoma State 91 66 25
12 TCU 90 66 24

Another who’s who of college football’s upper crust. The cool thing about this is that only Bama, Boise, Oregon, OU, LSU, Ohio State, FSU, and Oklahoma State are on both the 5-year and the 7-year lists which sheds light on the trajectory of the program is still looking down at the x-axis rather than up at it.

By the way for the entirety of Gundy’s career at OSU the program is 24th in the country in wins. Still pretty good considering that first seaon.

I’m not saying Gundy is the best coach in the country or OSU is the best program but as Bob Connelly pointed out at the golf outing on Wednesday it takes something special to have built this.

“The success that they’ve had over the last six years is exceptional,” he said. “Winning 10 games a year over the last five years is exceptional.”

Yes it is.

Photo Attribution: USATSI

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