What Are The Best Defensive Performances of The Gundy Era?

I started wondering after the Oklahoma State-TCU game on Saturday what the best performances of the Mike Gundy era are. This is impossible to determine, of course, because it is all subjective, and not one stands out above all the others.

There was the 2011 OU game. The 2013 Baylor game. The 2013 Mississippi State game. But these are all just anecdotes. All just games I have at the forefront of my mind. What about numbers, though? You guys know I love points per drive, but there is not a great way to look at individual games so we will have to measure by points scored and average yards gained.

By those standards, and using the TCU game as a barometer, here are all the games in the Gundy era in which OSU has given up 10 or fewer points and allowed five or fewer yards per play. I also threw in creating two or more TOs on defense.

There is some interesting stuff in here. You can throw out all the non-Power 5 games which leaves you with exactly 10 games in the Gundy era that fit the criteria. Three of those were against Kansas and Iowa State which leaves us with:

1. Georgia (2009)
2. Arizona (2010)
3. Texas Tech (2011)
4. Oklahoma (2011)
5. Mississippi State (2013)
6. TCU (2013)
7. TCU (2016)

That Georgia game was big time. The Arizona game was the Alamo Bowl. The Tech game resulted in the famous guns up picture. The OU game was the Big 12 title. The Mississippi State game opened the 2013 season. The TCU 2013 game was the famous Josh Stewart punt return photo game. And then this year.

#TBT Josh Stewart took a punt return 95 yards to the house vs TCU last season in a 24-10 Cowboy victory! pic.twitter.com/EJY2YgrpPS

— Kyle Boone (@PFBoone) October 16, 2014

That’s quite a collection.

You probably have to say the OU 2011 game tops the list just because of what was at stake and the fact that OSU created five turnovers that night. Also, this TCU offense certainly wasn’t the best of the bunch, but it was still a crazy good outing by Glenn Spencer’s boys. His boss agreed.

“First I’m going to say that was the best defensive effort, game plan, execution, tackling against some pretty elusive skill players, that I’ve seen in a long, long time,” said Mike Gundy on Saturday.