Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 12-6
’06W’07W’08L’09L’10W’11W’12W’13L’14W’15L’16W’17W’18W’19L’20W’21W’22L’23W
Show all 18 games
2006Independence BowlW 34-31
2007Insight BowlW 49-33
2008Holiday BowlL 31-42
2009Cotton Bowl ClassicL 7-21
2010Alamo BowlW 36-10
2011Fiesta BowlW 41-38
2012Heart of Dallas BowlW 58-14
2013Cotton Bowl ClassicL 31-41
2014Cactus BowlW 30-22
2015Sugar BowlL 20-48
2016Alamo BowlW 38-8
2017Camping World BowlW 30-21
2018Liberty BowlW 38-33
2019Texas BowlL 21-24
2020Cheez-It BowlW 37-34
2021Fiesta BowlW 37-35
2022Guaranteed Rate BowlL 17-24
2023Texas BowlW 31-23
Report card
Above the median on both sides of the ball — 68th percentile offense, 56th percentile defense.
Oklahoma State, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
18-20 against his rivals. Winless in 4 tries against Lincoln Riley.
14-5 against Texas Tech, but 3-8 against the spread in the 11 games with a line.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
Defining games during this era
From our list of the 50 most defining games of the Playoff era, ranked by how much each game mattered, not by date.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Gleeson; passed more under Yurcich and Dunn.
15,659 run and pass snaps at Oklahoma State, 2005–2024, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 7 ranked Oklahoma State classes of his own have averaged #42 nationally — best #29, worst #56.
His class — he had the full signing cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2025 roster arrived on his watch — 63 of 115 players. The other 52 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 57% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
This tenure spans the 2021 transfer-portal tracking floor: seasons before 2021 structurally cannot be classified portal-vs-not (they land in 'unknown' below), so the portal-share figure understates how many pre-2021 arrivals might have been transfers under the pre-portal-tracking transfer rules.
13% of his 157 new players since 2022 came through the portal (FBS programs, same seasons: 18%). His share was 4% in 2022 and 14% in 2024.
Graded on the players who arrived and the players who left together, his portal seasons came out worse than most FBS programs’ in 1 of the 3 seasons graded. our read
Each player counts once, in the season he arrived. 2021, the first season of portal tracking here, is left off because its arrival records look incomplete (about 31 new players per FBS team, against 52 in 2022). Portal grade: the site’s position-value-weighted scoring (the same engine as the Portal Heat feed and the “Who won the portal” grade): the value of the players who came in minus the value of the ones who left, ranked against every FBS program’s grade that same season. A season with fewer than 4 transfers in and out is not graded.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Oklahoma State rosters have averaged 4 lb heavier than the FBS average (2010–2024 rosters on record).
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 176 of 371 signees (47%) across his 2005–2025 tenure, drawn from 27 states in all. Next: OK (73).
72% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (OK 73, LA 10, AR 7, NM 2).
Off this map: 15 signees to the east (FL 5, GA 3, others), 13 to the west (CA 11, AZ, others) and 1 to the north (MN).
- median hometown distance
- 350 mi
- within 100 mi
- 21%
- within 500 mi
- 62%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 15%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 25 of them himself. 12 more can’t be traced to who brought them in (no roster record). 6 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | R3.11 | Nick Martin | Linebacker |  San Francisco 49ers | |
| 2025 | R5.23 | Collin Oliver | Linebacker |  Green Bay Packers | |
| 2025 | R6.03 | Ollie Gordon II | Running Back |  Miami Dolphins | |
| 2025 | R7.30 | Korie Black | Cornerback |  New York Giants | |
| 2023 | R4.28 | Tyler Lacy | Defensive End |  Jacksonville Jaguars | |
| 2023 | R7.17 | Jason Taylor II | Safety |  Los Angeles Rams | |
| 2022 | R6.09 | Malcolm Rodriguez | Inside Linebacker |  Detroit Lions | |
| 2022 | R6.14 | Devin Harper | Inside Linebacker |  Dallas Cowboys |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | R7.19 | Christian Holmes | Cornerback |  Washington Commanders | |
| 2021 | R2.07 | Teven Jenkins | Offensive Tackle |  Chicago Bears | |
| 2021 | R4.21 | Chuba Hubbard | Running Back |  Carolina Panthers | |
| 2021 | R4.26 | Tylan Wallace | Wide Receiver |  Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2021 | R6.17 | Rodarius Williams | Cornerback | New York Giants | |
| 2019 | R4.11 | Justice Hill | Running Back | Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2019 | R7.39 | Jordan Brailford | Defensive End |  Washington Redskins | |
| 2018 | R2.28 | James Washington | Wide Receiver |  Pittsburgh Steelers | |
| 2018 | R3.12 | Mason Rudolph | Quarterback | Pittsburgh Steelers | |
| 2018 | R5.09 | Tre Flowers | Safety |  Seattle Seahawks | |
| 2018 | R7.10 | Marcell Ateman | Wide Receiver |  Oakland Raiders | |
| 2017 | R6.10 | Vincent Taylor | Defensive Tackle |  Miami Dolphins | |
| 2017 | R7.31 | Christopher Carson | Running Back | Seattle Seahawks | |
| 2016 | R2.01 | Emmanuel Ogbah | Defensive End |  Cleveland Browns | |
| 2015 | R7.35 | Josh Furman | Linebacker |  Denver Broncos | |
| 2014 | R1.08 | Justin Gilbert | Cornerback |  Cleveland Browns | |
| 2013 | R5.18 | Joseph Randle | Running Back | Dallas Cowboys | |
| 2012 | R1.05 | Justin Blackmon | Wide Receiver |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 2012 | R1.22 | Brandon Weeden | Quarterback | Cleveland Browns | Estimated |
| 2012 | R6.20 | Markelle Martin | Safety |  Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2011 | R4.18 | Kendall Hunter | Running Back | San Francisco 49ers | Estimated |
| 2010 | R1.06 | Russell Okung | Offensive Tackle |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2010 | R1.24 | Dez Bryant | Wide Receiver | Dallas Cowboys | Estimated |
| 2010 | R5.06 | Perrish Cox | Cornerback | Denver Broncos | Estimated |
| 2010 | R7.43 | Zac Robinson | Quarterback |  New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 2009 | R1.20 | Brandon Pettigrew | Tight End |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2007 | R4.33 | Ryan McBean | Defensive End | Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2007 | R6.35 | Corey Hilliard | Offensive Tackle | New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 2006 | R6.30 | Charlie Johnson | Offensive Tackle |  Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one
1st-best Oklahoma State tenure of 15 by the numbers.
Followed Les Miles (2001–2004) · succeeded by Doug Meacham (2025).
| Season | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Record | 4-7 | 7-6 | 7-6 | 9-4 | 9-4 | 11-2 | 12-1 | 8-5 | 10-3 | 7-6 | 10-3 | 10-3 | 10-3 | 7-6 | 8-5 | 8-3 | 12-2 | 7-6 | 10-4 | 3-9 | 1-2 | |
| Postseason | — | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | — | — | |
| Coordinators | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| OC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Mike Yurcich | Mike Yurcich | Mike Yurcich | Mike Yurcich | Mike Yurcich | Sean Gleeson | Kasey Dunn | Kasey Dunn | Kasey Dunn | Kasey Dunn | Kasey Dunn | — | |
| DC | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Glenn Spencer | Glenn Spencer | Glenn Spencer | Glenn Spencer | Jim Knowles | Jim Knowles | Jim Knowles | Jim Knowles | Derek Mason | Bryan Nardo / Joe Bob Clements | Bryan Nardo / Joe Bob Clements | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Offense | 47 | 86 | 97 | 92 | 3 | 90 | 91 | 87 | 51 | 43 | 75 | 89 | 93 | 88 | 58 | 52 | 41 | 16 | 61 | 36 | — | |
| Defense | 55 | 11 | 1 | 26 | 85 | 59 | 21 | 50 | 93 | 26 | 22 | 47 | 47 | 17 | 56 | 70 | 98 | 51 | 9 | 5 | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 42.7 | 37.2 | 41.1 | 38.5 | 34.9 | 53.1 | 64.7 | 50.5 | 41.2 | 43.3 | 48.4 | 49.4 | 49.8 | 48.5 | 34.3 | 41.5 | 42.8 | 49.7 | 52.3 | 49.7 | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | 28.4 | 26.7 | 31.5 | 19.3 | 27.3 | 42.0 | 50.8 | 37.1 | 31.0 | 27.3 | 38.6 | 33.3 | 37.0 | 38.1 | 31.4 | 29.0 | 29.4 | 41.0 | 42.1 | 54.1 | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 22.9 | 35.9 | 37.5 | 30.6 | 34.9 | 16.2 | 33.3 | 21.1 | 21.2 | 21.4 | 15.4 | 15.4 | 32.6 | 36.6 | 30.0 | 20.0 | 18.5 | 25.0 | 24.1 | 46.2 | — | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on offense and underperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Brings in bigger-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
Coach of the Year: Big 12 Coach of the Year (2021), Big 12 Chuck Neinas Coach of the Year (2023)
3 player-seasons honored (All-America / national award): Mason Rudolph (2017), Malcolm Rodriguez (2021), Ollie Gordon II (2023)
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
tied for 2nd-most wins by a Big 12 coach
Was he good?
A mixed record — ahead of expectations by some measures here, behind by others. The honest read is that it depends which lens you use.
+21.1 pts at Oklahoma State · #59 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.