On Wednesday, Bob Stoops made himself available to the press for the first time since the release of the Joe Mixon videos. In essence, he said if this had happened recently the penalty would have been more severe and Mixon would probably have been kicked off the team. My response would be, “No you wouldn’t have” because you didn’t do that with DeDe Westbrook, you didn’t do that with Dorial Green-Beckham, and you didn’t do it with Frank Shannon. The only reason Rhett Bomar was dismissed in 2006 was because of the potential NCAA ramifications which could have negatively impacted the cash flow considerations of the football program.
The only reason Joe Mixon was allowed to stay was because he could help OU win football games and possibly become nationally relevant again. That is the only reason as it was with Westbrook, Green Beckham, and Frank Shannon.
The only reason Bob Stoops did the presser yesterday was because the national response to the video has been complete and total disdain for Stoops, Mixon, and the University of Oklahoma. This story has become the No. 1 story in college football. National writers aren’t contemplating an Ohio State–Alabama matchup–they’re talking about the Mixon coverup in Norman, Oklahoma.
Bob Stoops kept Joe Mixon for one reason–to help his football program win games. That’s it. If he were genuinely concerned about Mixon’s development as a young man he would have suspended Mixon for the remainder of this season after Mixon had an incident with an OU campus parking attendant. Stoops did suspend Mixon for one game against lowly Iowa State, but reinstated Mixon for important late season conference games against West Virginia and Oklahoma State. So…no, nothing is really different.
I’m pretty sure this story hasn’t played itself out just yet because it’s not just what Joe Mixon did, but rather the disturbing systemic manner in which Stoops and OU have handled a sequence of abuse cases involving football players. I’m not saying OU is on a par with what happened at Baylor, but I’m also guessing this story at OU hasn’t totally reached its conclusion just yet.