same reason Jimmy Johnson left. Will never be able to over-take OU in the state. Plus the state of Oklahoma produce virtually no FBS talent. The state of Tennessee actually does believe it or not. Definitely more talent than the state of Oklahoma.
With that offense- and his history of throwing the ball- Mike Gundy had been the coach, Tennessee probably lands in-state 5* WR Tee Higgins- guy who was the #2 WR in the 2017 class to DPJ.
Tennessee is a better job at the end of the day. Not sure I'd leave though. Tennessee fans are crazy.
Oklahoma's population is 3.9 million, compared to Tennessee's 6.6 million. I would guess that Oklahoma has about the same percentage of HS athletes good enough to play at Div 1-A as Tennessee does. Neither state produces enough Div 1-A athletes to fill the rosters of two P5 programs.
But I'll throw out some names that might sound familiar: Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Jason White, Sam Bradford. Those are four of OU's five Heisman Trophy winners, and they were/are all Okies.
However, it is very true that if we didn't have Texas as a nearby recruiting ground we would not be where we are. We've got 42 Texans on the roster compared to 31 Okies. I understand that Tennessee also would be in hurting if it relied entirely on in-state recruiting. Heck, Tennessee has gotten some star skill-position guys from Oklahoma.
Tennessee should be a much better job than Oklahoma State. It's the #1 school in a bigger state. It's got a lot more fans, more money and better (or at least bigger) facilities. But right now it's a mess.
There's some speculation among Oklahoma sports mediots that Mike Gundy is not serious about this job, that he's just using the interview process to extract something--more money for assistants, more control over scheduling, whatever--from Oklahoma State. He flirted with UT a few years back when they ended up hiring Butch Jones. I don't know if he was offered then, but the story out of his camp was that he had received an offer and turned it down. Maybe this is more of that.
