Well, here's the OU list of coaches:
http://soonerstats.com/football/coaches/ou/index.cfm#.Wl_k6UtG1Bw
We've got four to consider:
Benny Owen - who established a winning tradition at OU in the 1900s-20s
Bud Wilkinson - who established a national championship tradition at OU in the 1940s-60s
Barry Switzer - who reestablished a national championship tradition at OU in the 1970s-80s
Bob Stoops - who reinvigorated both the winning and national level presence at OU during the 2000s-10s
Bud and Barry won three national championships each. Bob won one NC, but has the most wins of all. All three had winning pcts of at least 80% and all three had 10 or more conference championships. And all three had winning records against both Texas and Nebraska. But Benny got the whole thing going. I still think the stadium should be called Owen Field.
So, who's best - you got me.
One worrisome thing about Lincoln Riley. Unlike the four greats listed above, his first name does not start with the letter B. Maybe he should change it to Blinkin' Riley ...
Hard to argue with a 12-2 first year though.
For the longest time, it was Owen Field at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Now it's Owen Field at Gaylord Family/Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
I say it's Bud Wilkinson.
Barry Switzer shades him on winning percentage and total wins, and Bob Stoops has him beat on total wins. But Bud took a program that had fallen from Bennie Owen's 1905-1926 heights (which weren't all
that high, winning 68% of the time) to Dewey Luster's 5-5 season in 1945 (and 27-18-3, 59%, overall). And between Owen's departure and Luster's, OU had gone 3-13-1 against Texas.
Wilkinson arrived with Jim Tatum in 1946, and became HFC with Tatum's departure after an 8-3 season. He went 145-29-4 in 17 seasons, with 14 Big 7/8 conference championships and 3 national championships. He had winning streaks of 47 games and 31 games.
The knock on Bud is that the Big 7/8 was a weak conference and that, aside from Texas, which was not at a historic peak, and Notre Dame, he didn't play many good OOC games. Bud went 9-2 vs. Texas in his first 11 seasons, but then lost his last 6 to finish at 9-8. He went 6-2 in bowl games, mostly during the period when the Big 8 only allowed one team to go bowling, and did not allow the same team to appear in consecutive years.
Switzer--whose played in a tougher Big 8 conference--had a 157-29-4 record in 17 seasons. He won 13 conference championships and 3 national championships, but he also lost 3 games in which a win would have given OU at least a split MNC. He went 9-5-2 against Texas, and went 8-5 in bowl games. Switzer inherited a good program from Chuck Fairbanks (77%, 3-1-1 in bowl games), so in that respect, his achievement is a little less impressive than Bud's.
But Switzer's personal behavior and his recruiting violations brought disrepute on OU, so I can't put him as our best coach ever.
Bob Stoops went 80% in a still tougher Big 12 conference in a period of CFB parity, went 9-6 against Texas, and he ran a pretty clean program by P5 standards, but his 9-9 bowl record, and 1-4 record in NC/CFP games put him a notch below Wilkinson and Switzer.