Before the long-reigning Mike Gundy took over in Stillwater, there were quite a few flops at the head coaching position for the Cowboys.
Oklahoma State has had 23 head coaches (including Gundy) since its football program started in 1905 and a handful of those coaches were pretty disappointing.
Here’s my ranking of the three worst head coaching hires in Oklahoma State history:
You never want a coach that lasts just one year with your program. When Oklahoma State named Dave Smith as the 17th head coach of the Cowboys, fans were hoping he could turn the program around after a tumultuous three seasons under Floyd Gass.
While Smith was able to take the Cowboys to a 7-4 overall record, he skipped town shortly after.
Finishing second in the Big Eight conference in 1972, Oklahoma State had a promising future ahead of them. However, Smith got an offer from the SMU Mustangs that he apparently couldn’t turn down.
While 7-4 wasn’t a show-stopping season, it was during a rebuilding year with a new head coach at the helm.
Once Smith left, the Cowboys would once again dip perilously close to winning just 50 percent of their games.
Naming him the head coach just for him to abandon ship a year later wasn’t a good look for the program and made the hire a bad call in general.