Mike Gundy’s second national Coach of the Year award: What does it mean?

Mike Gundy picked up another national coaching honor late Thursday night, winning the 2011 Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year.

National Coach of the Year awards are a bit like All-America teams—there are a lot of them. But there are five “main” ones—Bear Bryant, Eddie Robinson, American Football Coaches Association, Associated Press and Home Depot.

This season, those five awards were split between Gundy and Les Miles. Gundy also won the Eddie Robinson Award, while Miles won the other three. Another connection between the former OSU colleagues.

I thought it would be interesting to go back and revisit the Coach of the Year awards from the past 10 seasons. You’ll see expected names like Nick Saban, Gary Patterson, Urban Meyer, Jim Tressel, Joe Paterno and Chris Petersen. You’ll see some “huh?” names like Charlie Weis and Tyrone Willingham.

But the only coach to sweep all five awards during that time? Mark Mangino in 2007. My friendly colleague Travis Haney put it best: “It’s that hard to win football games at Kansas. Take ‘em to a BCS game, you’re going to get love.”

2011
Eddie Robinson: Mike Gundy (OSU)
Bear Bryant: Mike Gundy
AP: Les Miles (LSU)
Home Depot: Les Miles
AFCA: Les Miles

2010
Eddie Robinson: Chip Kelly (Oregon)
Bear Bryant: Gene Chizik (Auburn)
AP: Chip Kelly
Home Depot: Gene Chizik
AFCA: Chip Kelly