OU’s been fortunate to have some of the greatest head coaches in the history of football. 2 of them rank in the top 100 of ESPN’s list of best college coaches of the last 50 years.
Oklahoma has been fortunate to have long tenures of great head coaching throughout its history. It’s one of the reasons the Sooners are one of college football’s “blue bloods.” Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer, and Bob Stoops.
Over the last 50 years, the Sooners have won four national championships and 30 conference championships. 22 of those conference championships were won by two guys that ranked inside the top 30 of ESPN analyst Bill Connelly’s “top 100 coaches of the past 50 years (ESPN+).”
26. Bob Stoops: 1999-2016
OU was at its lowest-ever ebb when Stoops took over in 1999 … and he won a national title in his second year. He couldn’t replicate that feat, but he turned the Sooners back into both an offensive innovator and the Big 12’s premier program. – Connely
Stoops took over a program that had gone 13 seasons without a conference championship and 15 years without a national championship. “Big Game Bob” took the Sooners from a 5-6 record to an undefeated season and a national championship in just two seasons.
He’s a living legend for Oklahoma, who, despite not winning another national championship for the Sooners during his tenure, built a winning tradition and legacy that has carried on into the Lincoln Riley era.
9. Barry Switzer: 1973-1988
Switzer rode the Wishbone and otherworldly recruiting to spectacular success in the 1970s, and after a brief identity crisis in the early 1980s, he returned to the Bone and went 33-3 from 1985 to ’87. Over half his seasons ended with the Sooners in the AP top three. – Connely
First of all, how? How is Barry Switzer ranked behind Bill Snyder?
Sure, Snyder took over a crap Kansas State program and turned into a respectable team, but the guy only had two conference titles in his run with the Wildcats. Switzer has more national championships than Snyder has conference titles.
Switzer won 12 conference titles and three national championships. He’s still a larger-than-life presence for the Sooners.
The “last 50 years” cutoff leaves the legendary Bud Wilkinson off the list despite coaching the Sooners till 1963. His last national championship was in 1956, which wouldn’t have made the timeframe. Go back another 10 years, and you have to put Wilkinson in your top 10.
Wilkinson’s 47 game win streak is a feat of dominance that would be incredibly difficult for any modern program to come close to. As great as the six straight conference titles under Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley have, Wilkinson, won 13 straight from 1947 to 1959. That’s more than twice as many.
Also notable is that Lincoln Riley was left off the list. Of course, Riley has just four seasons under his belt as a college head coach, but he’s accomplished far more in those four seasons than Mike Leach. Despite Leach’s offensive innovation, he has zero conference championships at three different stops. Leach comes in at number 41 on this list.
Perhaps more inexplicable is that Mike Gundy comes in at number 65 while Lincoln Riley’s left off the list. Gundy’s a good coach, but again, he’s won just one Big 12 title in his 16 seasons with Oklahoma State. Riley’s won four in four years. Longevity seems to have weighed heavily in the rankings.
One name that certainly deserves some consideration is Chuck Fairbanks.
In the wake of the Wilkinson era, Chuck Fairbanks had a decent run but could never finish atop the polls for a national championship. He had two seasons of 11 wins and one of 10 wins and finished inside the top three of the AP Poll three times.
His tenure set the stage for the dominance of Barry Switzer. Still, Fairbanks took over a team that had gone 15-15-1 in the previous three seasons and immediately turned them into an 11-1 team and a national title contender.
Though a scandalous end to his tenure ensued, the ESPN list allows for other head coaches with questionable careers; Joe Paterno, Urban Meyer, and many more. So why not include Fairbanks?
Certainly, he’s not the giant of the sport that other head coaches have been. However, Fairbanks had a successful run that fell short of the national title but won three conference championships. That’s as many as Mike Gundy, Mike Leach, and Bill Snyder combined.
