OSU Hoops Back in the Top 25, So Let’s Look at Where Football Has Been

I know everybody has been (deservedly!) freaking out about this Oklahoma State basketball team and the trajectory the program seems to be on, but I wanted to use this week’s top-25 appearance as a reminder of how consistent and consistently good OSU football has been over the last 15 years.

Oklahoma State hoops debuted at No. 25 in the Coaches Poll this week for the first time in five years (which is insane). Here are some numbers as it relates to football.

*All data is from the AP Poll

• In the last five years, OSU football has been ranked for 46 of a possible 79 weeks (58 percent of the time).

• Since 2005, OSU football has been ranked for 125 of a possible 242 weeks (52 percent of the time).

• Their average ranking in those 125 weeks is 14th. Their high is No. 2 for two weeks back in 2011. Here’s how it has played out…

• OSU has strangely never been ranked No. 23 and (not strangely) never been ranked No. 1 under Gundy. The most common ranking is No. 11.

• In eight different seasons in the Gundy era, OSU has been ranked inside the top 10 for at least a week. They spent all 16 weeks of 2011 inside the top nine.

• One of the great OSU stats of all-time is that the 2014 team was at one point ranked No. 15 in the country, which is six spots better than this 2019 team — which would beat the 2014 team by 30 points — has been ranked all season.

• Here are its highest rankings by year.

• Its biggest drop in the polls came in 2009, and it happened twice. OSU dropped 11 spots after losing to Houston at home. Then it dropped 11 spots again later in the season when OU obliterated the Pokes 27-0 in Norman.

• Its biggest leap in the polls came in 2008 after beating Mizzou in Columbia. OSU went from No. 17 to No. 8 after that game and rose to No. 7, which is where it stood when it lost to No. 1 Texas in Austin.

• The 2010 team spent just one week inside the top 10. Would take that squad against anybody outside the top five (and NBA Jam Taylor Martinez) that year.

• One aside I found as I was doing this research: Texas’ 2005 ranking progression was incredible. Here it was from preseason to postseason.

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• This is the first year since 2007 OSU hasn’t at some point in the year been ranked inside the top 20. And it’s one of only two seasons (2012 was the other) that OSU hasn’t been ranked inside the top 15.

• OSU was not ranked from 1989-96 and then again from 1998-2002. The toughest scene.

Anyway, this isn’t a knock on hoops. Trust me, I’m puuuuumped that they’re ranked. But I do find it to be a nice little cognitive exercise. We’re used to OSU being No. 15 in the country year in and year out in football so it’s NBD. When it’s basketball? We do keg stands on Monroe Street!

On one hand, this makes sense. On the other, I think it’s easy to lose sight of how difficult it is to be ranked inside the top 20 for 11 years in a row (and probably 12 depending on the bowl game). Mike Boynton can only (and probably does) dream of a program as consistent as that over the next decade plus.