Mike Gundy Almost Always Beats The Teams He Should Beat

We have talked a lot about how good Mike Gundy is with equal or better talent than his opponents. In my mind, Gundy rarely loses when he’s not supposed to lose. Oklahoma State is now 51-6 in its last 57 games against unranked teams. That’s pretty solid.

It goes deeper than that though. I think sometimes because the wins aren’t routs and they aren’t necessarily pretty, it can become frustrating. But nobody embodies the “just win, baby” mentality in the Big 12 more than these Cowboys.

And while Gundy’s record against elite teams leaves something to be desired, he and his staff have almost always taken care of business against lesser competition. Consider the following numbers in the Gundy era (via Team Rankings).

OSU as a favorite since 2005

Those are all the teams that have won 85 percent of the games they were supposed to win as the favorite. That’s pretty impressive. Gundy has only been upset 12 times in nearly 12 seasons. Note: MOV is margin of victory. ATS +/- is how well you perform against the spread (OSU beats it by an average of 3.5 points).

OSU as a favorite since 2010

What about since Oklahoma State has been really good nationally and favored more often than not? It’s easy to look at the first few years and say, “well they were favored over Montana State and they won. Sweet.” But what about since it has been a power? Here are the since 2010 numbers.

Still really impressive. Up there with the likes of Ohio State, LSU and Florida State. Only eight upsets in seven seasons. It gets even better though.

OSU as a home favorite since 2010

The three losses (I believe) were Bedlam 2010, Bedlam 2013 and Central Michigan.

It gets even better!

OSU as a favorite since 2014

The only loss in the last three years OSU has experienced is the home “loss” to Central Michigan. Other than that, it is perfect.

So you can criticize Mike Gundy for not recruiting well, not being more aggressive against OU and not making the leap to the next tier of elite teams (all valid criticisms, by the way), but you can’t really say he hasn’t taken care of business when he was supposed to. Not in the last three years, and not ever really.