Mike Gundy's No. 8 Big 12 Coaches Ranking Explained

STILLWATER – On Tuesday, I wrote about CBS Sports’ ranking of the Big 12 football coaches, with a focus on Mike Gundy checking in at No. 8, just behind Deion Sanders at No. 7. 

I’ll stand by my thought that in no world is Prime a better coach than Mike. It’s just a fact. 

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Mike Gundy in 2024

With that being said, Robert Allen spoke with the writer of the article, Shehan Jeyarajah, today on Triple Play Sports Radio about the rankings. While I still don’t agree Mike should be No. 8 on the list, I can certainly understand the hesitation and confusion from the outside surrounding Cowboy football. 

The answer Jeyarajah gave was really thoughtful and in-depth. 

“I want to preface it by saying that if you’re just asking for who’s the most accomplished coach in the Big 12, I think that Mike Gundy’s No. 1; I’d have him ahead of Kyle Whittingham as the most accomplished, most achievements. But that’s not really what we were ranking – and by the way, this a panel, this is eight people who all have different votes. I had Mike Gundy a little bit higher, I had him closer to the five range than the eight range of the Big 12, but I do think there’s a couple pieces of criteria that went into this for us. One I think is, again, when you talk about coming off a poor season, I think it is relevant. I really don’t believe record alone is a good indicator, but it’s more about the big term trend.

“The other thing too that I think held Mike Gundy back in the eyes of voters is that he was kind of honest when he talked with us at Big 12 Media Days. He has been kind of slow to adjust to this new era. This was the first roster he said that he said they bought, this is the first year [the coaches] have been really aggressive with NIL, but then you add on top of that, when you’re projecting this year and beyond, they’ve got nine new assistant coaches. Almost every piece outside of Mike Gundy, of the program’s DNA the past 10 years or so is now gone. I think that made him a little bit more complicated of a rank than he has been in previous years because if you go back two or three years, this is somebody who is top 2, top 3, top 4 in the Big 12. Again, I had him more in the five range, but I think those are some of the questions when you put together a panel that they had to ask of him.”

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Todd Grantham during the Spring Game

All 10 assistant coaches are new and there are 63 new players on the roster. That’s certainly a fair way of looking at things. This is such a wild time in college football, with OSU not being an outlier in this situation. You don’t even need to look outside the Big 12 in Arizona State and Colorado. Prime has brought in new coaches and more than half his roster out of the portal of the seasons he’s been in Boulder. Kenny Dillingham brought in virtually an entirely new roster last year and made the playoffs.

While it’s challenging to try and predict how the Cowboys’ season will go this year, it’s hard to imagine they’d be any worse than they were last season.