Oklahoma football: Five best Sooner coaches who never won a national title

Oklahoma football has made coaching legends out of four former Sooner head coaches. Or perhaps it is the other way around.

Bennie Owen, Charles “Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops are all member of the Century Club, having won more than 100 games during their coaching tenure at Oklahoma, and combined have 614 (or 66 percent) of the Sooners’ 934 wins all-time and 39 of their nation-best 50 conference championships. Three of the four also accounted for all seven of Oklahoma’s national championship seasons.

All four men, immortalized in life-sized bronze statutes just south of Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, represent Oklahoma football at its very best. But these are just four of 23 men who have held the head coach’s title in the now 129-year history of the Oklahoma football program.

Outside of the four aforementioned OU coaching giants, 18 others have come and gone, not counting current head honcho Brent Venables, who took the reins 16 months ago as No. 23 in the progression. Aside from a first name that begins with the letter “B,” Venables has something else in common with three of the OU coaching legends (Wilkinson, Switzer and Stoops). The Oklahoma job was his first head-coaching assignment.

So, who are the five best former Oklahoma football coaches never to win a national title?

Here are the five, in no particular order, but based on winning percentage: