THE POWER RANK

  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
  • Log in

Infographic shows the effect of paying players at Oklahoma State

By Dr. Ed Feng 1 Comment

Oklahoma State

Sports Illustrated dropped a bomb on Oklahoma State and college football this week. A report revealed a massive number of NCAA violations, including paying players and academic fraud.

The payment of players started in 2001 when Les Miles became head coach. With data visualization, we can look at how team performance changed after this started.

The top panel shows wins over the last 30 years. Oklahoma State struggled in the 1990’s, even managing a winless season in 1991.

The Cowboys started to win more after 2001. In fact, they have won at least 6 games in each year of the past decade, with Mike Gundy’s first year in 2005 as the only expection.

The bottom panels shows the team rating from The Power Rank algorithm. This rating gives an expected margin of victory against an average FBS team.

If you’re not sure what to think about a computer rating, consider the predictive power of The Power Rank. In pre bowl rankings, the higher ranked team has won 66.8% of bowl games since 2005. In comparison, the opening line in Vegas has correctly predicted 59.8% of bowl game winners over the same period (data from The Prediction Tracker).

The rating also shows improvement in Oklahoma State football since 2001. They became an above average Big 12 team during the tenure of Les Miles. However, it took time to become an elite program. In 2011, they beat Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl and finished 3rd in the rankings behind Alabama and LSU. This came ten years after the alleged payments to players started.

Two things stand out about this Sports Illustrated report.

No denials of the allegations

If athletic director Mike Holder knew nothing about paying players, I would expect him to deny the allegations in the report. Instead, Holder apologized to other member institutions of the Big 12.

Even Oklahoma State super booster T. Boone Pickens didn’t deny the allegations. Within 24 hours of SI’s story, Pickens released this well shot and edited video. He only criticized SI for not looking at the state of the program today.

No accusations against the super booster

T. Boone Pickens is well know for his generosity to Oklahoma State football. In December of 2005, he gave $165 million towards renovating the stadium, now know as Boone Pickens Stadium.

However, Sports Illustrated does not allege that Pickens participated in any of the payment to players.

It’s hard to say with certainty that the payments to players caused the rise in Oklahoma State’s football program. However, visualizing the data certainly shows a rise in their program after 2001 when these payments started.

Filed Under: College Football, College Football Analytics, Oklahoma State Cowboys

Trackbacks

  1. Karl Jobst says:
    March 8, 2015 at 6:23 am

    Karl Jobst

    Infographic shows the effect of paying players at Oklahoma State

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Data driven betting information

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.

To sign up for The Power Rank's email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"

Popular Articles

  • How to predict interceptions in the NFL
  • 5 insights from academic research on predicting world soccer/football matches
  • How to win your NCAA tournament pool
  • The ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics
  • Accurate football predictions with linear regression
  • The surprising truth about passing and rushing in the NFL
  • Football analytics resource guide
  • The Reason You Can’t Avoid The Curse of Small Sample Size
  • The essential guide to predictive CFB rankings
  • How computer rankings make you smarter about sports
  • How to win your college football bowl pool
  • Do you make these 3 mistakes with college football statistics?
  • The Top 10 Things to Know About The Power Rank’s Methods

Recent Articles

  • Podcast: Hitman on NFL betting, Super Bowl LVII
  • Members: Super Bowl game and prop analysis
  • 7-Nugget Saturday, January 28, 2023
  • Cincinnati at Kansas City, AFC Conference Championship Game
  • Podcast: Dr. Eric Eager on the NFL Conference Championships

© 2023 The Power Rank Inc., All rights reserved.

About, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy

Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.


These are the goals with every correspondence, which cover bets on the NFL and college football.


To sign up for The Power Rank's free email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"


No thanks, I'll make my predictions without data and analytics.

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":true}
  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member