“Our Guys”

You may have heard the term “our guy” used about one of OSU’s coaches in the past 12 months or so. Okay, you’ve DEFINITELY heard it used. It is used divisively in regards to Travis Ford, he of the bluegrass pedigree and northeastern trade plying. But it has also been used to the boon (no pun) of one Michael Gundy Ex: “he’s our guy, that’s why he’s successful.”

I’m not even sure what this means. Does it mean he went to school at OSU or does it mean he was born in Oklahoma? Has an Oklahoma drivers license? For simplicity’s sake (and the sake of this post) I’m going to assume it means degree received from Oklahoma State University.

To that end I thought it might be interesting to look back and see if we give preferential treatment to “our guys” because they went to school in Stillwater or because they were actually better coaches for OSU.

Here’s a look at hoops:

First, the 15 head coaches who didn’t graduate from Oklahoma State, including Mr. Iba, have accumulated a .571 overall winning percentage in just over 1,900 career games. That number is waning even with Mr. Iba’s contribution. Also, I want our next coach to be a lieutenant.

The overall record of coaches who DID graduate from OSU is a lofty .639. Yes, I realize the majority of that is just Eddie being Eddie, but when you factor in Mr. Iba to the non-graduates’ numbers I have to think those two kind of cancel each other out.

In football, it’s more of the same story. The 20 non-grads (including the illustrious “none”) have piled up a .480 career winning percentage with the best of the bunch being Paul Davis, Les Miles, and good ‘ol Pappy Waldorf, who was 27 at the time he took the helm. That’s like Weeden’s age, y’all!

The winning percentage for graduates has been increasing for the last few years now and sits at a very respectable .596. A good point of reference is that if OSU had only been coached by OSU graduates, it would have a winning comparable to that of Arkansas, Clemson, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and Georgia Tech. As it stands, we’re more in the Baylor, UAB, NC State area.

This concept, while intriguing, is exacerbated by the fact that you have an OSU grad running the show for a football program that is headed in the right direction and a non-OSU grad drawing Xs and Os for a hoops program that is probably not.

Is it 100% foolproof to hire only OSU grads (hireonlyosugrads.com?)? No, because if I give you a choice between Sean Sutton and Travis Ford, you take Ford ten out of ten times. But I think it warrants mentioning even as we afford one of Kentucky’s finest one more season to get the ship righted all the while looking to the horizon at names like Thompson (reasonable), Self (pipe dream!), and….Gottlieb (?!).

You know, “our guys.”