Big XII Coaching Board

The initial rankings of the Big XII Coaches. Each week these will be updated based on their previous game and the season-to-date.

Bob Stoops
Oklahoma
Stoops and Mack Brown are the twin stars of the Big 12, and right now Bob is burning brighter. He has won five conference championships, a Big XII South title, and has pretty much owned the series, going 6-2 since the 2000 National Championship season. Oklahoma has lost two BCS Championship games since then and if Stoops expects to stay at the top of the conference he will need to remain on the national scene.

Mack Brown
Texas
Call Mack 1B. A more recent national title than OU, but other than that '05 season, Texas has vastly underachieved during Brown's era. Similar to '90s UGA, the past 10 years have been marked by numerous high recruiting classes, but UT only has 1 Big XII Championship to show for it. This season, not only are the Sooners thought to be vying for the national championship, but Texas Tech is getting more pub than Texas.

Gary Pinkel
Missouri
The fact that Pinkel was close to being run out of town makes him a curious pick and shows just how much the Big XII is the Big 2 and Little 10. Pinkel has a loss to Troy State on his record, but is this high based on a great year from Chase Daniel and a high prediction this year. To an extent, Pinkel has been able to take advantage of the downturn at Colorado and Nebraska, but with those teams appearing to be back on the rise, Pinkel's stay at No. 3 is shaky at best.

Mike Leach
Texas Tech
The pioneer of the spread offense in the Big XII, Leach has done amazing things on offense at Texas Tech, and in recent years the Red Raiders have become more of a Big XII player than ever, but they have yet to get over the hump, mainly due to their defense. This season, for the first time, Texas Tech has a defense, while not equal to the star-studded offense, that may keep people from hanging 30-plus each week.

Mark Mangino
Kansas
Yeah, Mangino, along with Weiss and Friedgen, make up the Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus and Bruhathkayosaurus of college football, but he has created an above average team that stole attention away from basketball, at least until March. Mangino gets the No. 5 slot only because of the Orange Bowl victory (a loss there would've put him around No. 8, which is prob were he deserves), but with Texas Tech, Texas, and OU on the schedule, I doubt he'll stay here for long.

Dan Hawkins
Colorado
The former Boise State guru has had limited success in Boulder, and you have to wonder how much it irked Hawkins when his former team made headlining news with the victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, building on the foundation he layed, but unable to reap the rewards. Plus, Hawkins still hasn't beaten Oklahoma and it's no reason to think that his teams will be competitive anytime soon. He does recieve a break due to the horrible quagmire that had become Colorado football.

Bo Pelini
Nebraska
It's funny how Pelini gets credit for the amazing defenses at LSU, but Miles gets no credit for the W's because those are Saban's players... Isn't that one in the same? Anyway, I think this will be a good fit. NU has lost a lot of it's identity with the Callahan regime, but the Pelini-hire should bring back the Blackshirt Defense. Plus, he'll have a much larger grace period as he's not completely overhauling 60 years of Cornhusker tradition. I expect that he'll be atop the North within two years, esp with a unified Nebraska base.

Mike Gundy
Oklahoma State
Alright, we know, he's a man; he's 40+. He's still not brought OSU anything more than a win over Texas in '06, and, I guess, a somewhat noteworthy victory over Alabama in the Independence Bowl. The Cowboys are going to have to fight annually to rise above No. 4 in the South, and with A&M surely to become more competitive ($$$) in the future, it's going to be tough for OSU to being anything above number five.

Ron Prince
Kansas State
Ron Prince is in a similar (though less sleazy) situation as Sly Croom - come in to a team that had no success until the '90s, after the head coach jumped on the JUCO bandwagon, and began to compete annually within a division dominated by one or two national title contenders. Prince is trying to do things the right way; building up a team from the bottom up, but the Wildcats have had little success under his tenure. His teams will do well in the years he misses Texas and Oklahoma, but getting in the top 3 of the division will be an annual struggle.

Mike Sherman
Texas A&M
I honestly don't remember much of Sherman, other than him in ugly green fleeces. Apparently A&M is really excited about this hire, which isn't much of a surprise. They always get excited during the honeymoon then upset when they can't beat Texas annually; Sherman's No. 10 here, and no matter if he's the re-incarnation of R.C.Slokum, I'm guessing he'll either be run out of College Station in 5 years, or retire in the same amount of time.

Art Briles
Baylor
Art Briles should probably get more respect than I'm giving him, but then again, his work did come at Houston in C-USA, and my knowledge of CUSA is lacking. It's difficult to find a worse BCS coaching position than Baylor, as Guy Morriss, who had garnered moderate success at Kentucky, went for the million dollar paycheck and the boot from Baylor within 4 years (of course, a little drunken alcohol scene didn't carry well in the Baptist stronghold). All of that was to say I know nothing of Briles, but there's little reason to think that any good coaching ability that he possesses won't be slowly squeezed out of him by the Bears .

Gene Chizik
Iowa State
A star as a defensive coordinator, Chizik may have leapt too quickly for a head coaching job. Somewhat wonder if Chizik just signed up to be a HC and didn't realize he'd be shipped off to Ames. His time at ISU has been poor at best, but there's no reason to think that Iowa State will ever reach the top 3 of the North, especially with Mangino forming a competitive team annually in Kansas.