The Athletic ranks Oklahoma as 19th best job in college football; what's up with that?

Oklahoma is a college football blue blood program, widely renowned and recognized as one of the most historically successful in the sport.

The Sooners are one of the top five or six program in college football in terms of wins, national and conference championships, 11-win seasons and Heisman Trophy winners.

Yet, in an article this week on the website of The Athletic (subscription required), the Oklahoma coaching job was ranked as the 19th best in all of college football. Someone please help me understand how can this be, given the long distinguished history behind the program?

Actually, The Athletic article, bylined by Bruce Feldman and Antonio Morales, was about the top-five jobs in college football but went on to rank every team that received at least one vote.

To come up with the ranking, The Athletic, in its own words "polled 50 people working in college football -- from head coaches to general managers to assistant coaches, analysts and recruiting staffers -- to determine which programs are now at the top of the food chain." First-place votes received five points, second place four points and so on.

Going back as far as 2018, the top four or five best jobs in college football have remained pretty consistent: Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas and LSU, but not always in that order.

Based purely on votes received, the poll conducted this year by The Athletic places the Oklahoma job as No. 19. The Sooners received one fifth-place vote by those who participated. Seven SEC jobs (Georgia, Texas, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Texas A&M and Tennessee) were rated as more prestigious than the OU job. What's even more aggravating, though, is that the coaching jobs at Florida Atlantic, Liberty and UCF were ranked ahead of Oklahoma. That seems extremely difficult to fathom.

Maybe it was just the flawed methodology used by The Athletic in rating the top jobs in college football. It wasn't that many years ago that both Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley were ranked as one of the top 10 coaches in college football during their time heading the program. Brent Venables is only in his third season as Oklahoma head coach, so it is understandable that he hasn't had the same success yet, but he is still paid extremely well ($8.5 million annually, 14th best, according to the On3 data base of college football head coach salaries).

Sooner fans can take some solace in knowing that the college football staff at 247Sports has a different view of the relative value of the Oklahoma football job.

It's again understandable that after the Sooners' 6-7 season in 2022, the first season under Venables, the luster of the OU job dulled a bit, but the Sooners rebounded for a 10-3 season in 2023 and are now part of the prestigious SEC.

Ahead of the 2022 season, Oklahoma was ranked as the 10th best job in college football by 247Sports, just behind Notre Dame and Clemson. 247Sports updated that ranking ahead of the 2024 season. Oklahoma had moved up to the No. 8 position nationally. That seems a lot more realistic than what The Athletic is suggesting about the value and prestige behind the Oklahoma head-coaching job.

247Sports staff writer Brad Crawford had this to say about the Sooners' coaching job:

"The playing field for Oklahoma is considerably more even in its new league (SEC)...Averaging double digit wins every year like Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley did will be tough. One note to Oklahoma as a top job -- athletic director Joe Castiglione, who's been leading the Sooners since 1998 is consistently mentioned amongst coaching types as one of the top in his profession to work for and under."