Two Eye-Popping Numbers That Show Just How Bad Mike Gundy Has Been Against OU

Mike Gundy is a great coach who is 1. The best in Oklahoma State history and 2. One of the more underrated head coaches in the country. Both true things. A third true thing is that he has been really bad against OU, and it hasn’t been — like he thinks — just because OU has a great program.

Here’s what Gundy said on Monday when he was asked about his 2-11 record against the Sooners.

“I think they’re good. Have you watched them play? Everybody’s struggled against them. They’re a good team. That’s the bigger factor.”

While this is true, Gundy’s futility has stood out. OU is the only current Big 12 team OSU has a losing record against, and it’s not even close.

• Kansas: 10-1
• Texas Tech: 11-3
• Iowa State: 8-3
• TCU: 4-2
• West Virginia: 4-2
• Baylor: 8-6
• Kansas State: 6-5
• Texas: 7-7
• Oklahoma: 2-11

To go even beyond that, I wanted to look at two numbers today that really capture just how lousy Oklahoma State has been under Gundy against Bob Stoops (and now Lincoln Riley).

1. Gundy vs. History

I mentioned this yesterday, but Mike Gundy’s record against OU has somehow been worse than OSU’s record against OU historically even though he is (by far!) the winningest coach in OSU history, has six 10-win seasons (of the nine in 105 years of OSU football) and is currently in the middle of (pretty easily) the golden era of Oklahoma State football.

Here’s a look (ties, I found out, count as half wins when you’re doing winning percentages).

• Gundy vs. OU: 2-11 (15%)
• OSU vs. OU: 19-86-7 (20%)

This isn’t a two-year sample size either. Gundy has coached in over 10 percent of the Bedlam games in history, and he’s won just two of them. That’s a real thing, even if he simply pins it on OU being good, which leads us to …

2. OSU vs. the Country

I looked at OSU’s winning percentage against Big 12 teams up against the nation’s winning percentage against teams since 2005 when Gundy took over (or for TCU and WVU, since 2012). The data was … interesting.

The way you can look at this is, for example, that the national average for beating Texas Tech since 2005 is 41 percent of the time. OSU has been far better than the national average (which you would expect) at 79 percent. That’s a gargantuan difference.

And because Oklahoma State has been generally better than “the national average” throughout this period of time, you would expect them to perform better than the “the national average” against every team in the Big 12 in the Gundy era. This holds water … until we get to OU.

OU has won 79 percent of its games since 2005, which is No. 4 nationally in that period of time — only Alabama, Boise State and Ohio State are ahead of them. So the national average is that they get beat 21 percent of the time. Because OSU has more or less been the second best team in the Big 12 in that period of time, you would expect to see them, at the very least, surpass 21 percent. Not that anyone would expect them to have a winning record against OU, but that they would be better than most.

But no, they haven’t been. And those two statistics are a pretty damning indictment of Gundy’s performance against OU. Has OSU played absolutely incredible games against the Sooners over the last 13 years? Absolutely. Does a win this year raise Gundy’s percentage to 21 percent, right at the national average? Yes it does. Are there nuances to this exercise that I’m ignoring for the sake of proving a point? Sure.

But the reality here is that Mike Gundy has been worse than he should have been over the course of his career against OU and worse when you create a baseline than against any other team in the Big 12. Two wins in 13 tries. Absolute futility. And it doesn’t look like that trend will be reversed any time soon.