Why Mike Gundy Roots For OU and Texas (And Why That’s Smart)

This makes sense logically, but it’s still weird to hear Mike Gundy say the words out loud. On Monday, Gundy was asked about what he thought about the Big 12 non-conference football schedule after the big Houston-OU and Texas-Notre Dame games on opening weekend.

“I’ve said it before, it’s maybe not the most fashionable thing to say, but we need Big 12 teams to win,” Gundy said. “We want OU to win. We want Texas to win. We want the teams in this league when they are playing out of conference to do the very best they can to win games. It only helps the long-term strength of the way people see our league across the country.”

We want OU to win.

???

He’s right though. Oklahoma State needs OU and Texas to win because Oklahoma State has to slingshot itself into the college football stratosphere using those two schools (shoutout to RG3 for the reference). A 3-2 Texas team or 7-4 OU team does Oklahoma State absolutely no good because if you beat them with those records, so what?

If you beat a 5-0 Texas team or a 10-1 OU team, that’s a real victory in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee. There’s also the matter of games between 10-1 teams just flat out being more fun than games between 7-4 teams.

OU’s loss on Saturday, enjoyable as it was, was actually bad for Oklahoma State. Both because it’s probably going to be a gateway for the sleeping giant that is Houston to get into the conference and because it lessens the perceived overall strength of the Big 12.

This is the same reason preseason polls are silly and actually hurt teams like Oklahoma State while simultaneously helping teams like Auburn, Florida and Texas A&M. The perceived reality of the SEC is that it is an historically better conference than all the other conferences. Fine, that’s likely true. But because preseason polls are so often based on brand awareness (because we know nothing), the SEC gets more teams in and artificially inflates its own perceived value before a single game is played!

Problem is that these Polls create a baseline for "quality" wins or losses…they absolutely matter and are stupid https://t.co/hMiZSqs3Ya

— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) August 21, 2016

Think about it. With no preseason poll, Texas might be ranked in the top five this week. Great for OSU! But because there was a poll and Texas was not in the top 25, it likely won’t rise into the top 15 or 10 based on one win. Bad for OSU!

Still, I’ll be rooting, like Gundy, for those schools to remain unbeaten until Oklahoma State gets them later in the year (unless Louisiana Monroe has OU on the ropes … then all bets are off).