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Stoops has Sooners chasing a title
‘Big Game’ Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
tuned out all the critics in 2015
By BRIAN DZENIS
On OCT. 10, the world seemed to have turned on Bob Stoops.
His then 4-0 Oklahoma Sooners lost, 24-17, to a Texas team that later finished 5-7. That loss, combined with last year’s 8-5 campaign, had everyone from ESPN pundits all the way down to the common fan wondering if “Big Game Bob” had lost his luster.
Fast forward to the present, the Cardinal Mooney graduate is in the College Football Playoff with a chance to win his second national title. He isn’t interested in revisiting a time where people were questioning his competence.
“Where does it benefit me? Why would I read a bunch of fan tweets? I could care less.” Stoops said.
College football is an impatient sport. It saw LSU’s Les Miles nearly lose his job despite delivering a national championship victory, another championship appearance and no losing seasons in 10 years. It has Bo Pelini coaching at Youngstown State this fall when seven years of at least nine victories weren’t good enough for Nebraska. It’s a world that Stoops has thrived in for 17 years.
People can shortsighted when it comes to evaluating other coaches, he said. For himself, he offers no insight or secrets to his longevity.
He just has results.
“We thrive because we’ve won. We’ve won nine Big 12 Championships, because we’ve won 10 or more games in the last 13 years,” Stoops said. “We do it right and we care about our players. All of that together, you do the right things and you’re winning and you continue to have your job.”
Stoops thinks talk of getting canned after a loss is inane, especially considering what happened after that Red River Shootout defeat. The Sooners haven’t lost a game since, including a regular-season finish in which they knocked off No. 6 Baylor, No. 18 TCU and No. 11 Oklahoma State in consecutive games. The result was a CFP berth with Clemson, Alabama and Michigan State.
“We’re really a team that just continued to grow and improve as we went through the season and that continued to happen down the stretch,” Stoops said.
What do the Sooners have going for them? For one, the team was galvanized entering the year by how they responded to a viral video of OU fraternity brothers chanting racial slurs. The team staged a silent protest during spring practices as the university closed the offending fraternity and expelled two students.
“Our players did a great job responding to it. They were insightful and thoughtful in how they wanted to respond to it,” Stoops said. “I thought our team grew closer and even more respectful of one another having talked through all the issues.”
On the field, Oklahoma boasts one of the top offenses in college football. The Sooners are third in the nation, averaging 45.8 points. Making that offense go is a two-time walk-on turned Heisman trophy contender Baker Mayfield. As a true freshman at Texas Tech, he earned the starting job at the beginning of the season and started nine games for the Red Raiders. But when Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury decided to re-open competition for the QB job and allegedly was slow to give Mayfield a scholarship, he departed for Oklahoma. Following a contentious transfer saga between two rival schools in the same conference, Mayfield missed the 2014 season before walking on with the Sooners. This time around, no one will accuse Stoops of being slow to commit.
“He wasn’t a walk-on long once we got to working with him,” Stoops said. “We made sure in a short period of time that he knew that he was going to be on scholarship.”
Mayfield has rewarded that trust with a season that had him finish in fourth place in the Heisman voting. The Austin, Texas native has thrown for 3,389 yards, 35 touchdowns and just five interceptions. He’s also rushed for 420 yards and seven scores. A few media outlets in Big 12 country have suggested Stoops lucked into landing the junior signal-caller, but not so fast, the coach says.
“It’s not luck that we’re doing so well that a kid down in Austin, Texas followed us,” He said. “It’s good fortune that he was a Sooner fan, but usually kids aren’t following people in other states when they’re not doing so well.”
Mayfield headlines a team that’s much more talented than Stoops’ championship-winning team from 2000. Stoops even added that he’s had several other teams better than that squad. Having already won a championship under the old BCS system, Stoops is fan of the College Football Playoff, which is in it’s second year.
“I like the way the playoff system is set up,” he said. “I felt that way a year ago even when we weren’t in it. I thought this was a change for the positive.
“It’s probably a more challenging path [to a title] because you have to play two games against two great teams.”
Stoops will spend the rest of the week trying to figure out how to stop another Heisman-nominated quarterback, No. 1 Clemson’s Deshaun Watson. Stoops’ offense will face one of his proteges, former Sooners defensive coordinator Brent Venables who now holds the same job at Clemson.
When it comes to local affairs, while most of the coach’s family still resides in the Youngstown area, he says he’s too far away to keep a close eye on the Mahoning Valley, football-related or not. If he does hear anything, it’s usually when he’s catching up with the growing branches of his coaching tree. On one of those branches is Pelini, a former assistant and Big 12 rival. His older brother, Ron Stoops Jr., is a co-defensive coordinator with the Penguins. His brother Mark is the head coach at Kentucky. Another brother, Mike, is Bob’s defensive coordinator.
On Pelini, Stoops said he doesn’t comment on the paths other coaches take, but thinks Pelini will earn another FBS head coaching job.
“I think Bo is a great coach with a great background. He had great success at Nebraska,” Bob Stoops said.
Heading into New Year’s Eve, Bob Stoops will keep a bunker mentality. There’s only Clemson to worry about. He has no time to ponder if the college football universe is fair to its coaches or appreciates them enough.
After all, it’s the results that matter.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s fair,” Stoops said. “It’s not relevant whether it’s fair or not. It’s there, so you deal with it. You continue to work your process and continue to develop your team and that’s what you focus on.”