I’m not really shocked. Being the head football coach at OU is a meat grinder. Bob Stoops came to OU when the program was absolutely horrible after the 1998 season. OU under Gary Gibbs, Howard, and John Blake suffered the worst ten year streak of OU football in my lifetime. When Stoops took the job, OU had gone through five straight losing seasons and ten straight seasons without playing in a major bowl.
My dad and I went to that first Independence Bowl in Stoops’ first season on a New Years’ Eve night. OU lost to Ole Miss on a late field goal. In season two OU won the national championship by beating heavily favored Florida State in the Orange Bowl. Year Three — a Cotton Bowl win over Arkansas. Year 4 — a Rose Bowl win over Washington State. We were there. Pretty much a Bucket List trip. We made the coastal drive from San Diego to Pasadena in a convertible. It’s a day I’ll never forget. Then a national championship game in New Orleans against LSU. Then another trip to the Orange Bowl to play USC in another national championship game. Great memories. Other than the Rose Bowl win, the bowl trip which forever stays with me though was the incredible ending against Boise in the Fiesta Bowl. We were there for what many call the zaniest ending of a major bowl game in college football history. My father and I hugged on two separate times thinking we’d won, but not to be.
All told, Bob Stoops won 190 football games and exits as the winningest coach in OU football history. He won one national championship, had his team in four national championships game, won ten Big 12 titles, qualified for a Final Four berth, won a Rose Bowl, won two Sugar Bowls, won a Fiesta Bowl, won a Cotton Bowl, and won an Orange Bowl.
But most of all, he restored OU football to its place as one of the premier programs in the country, and he did it with class. Under Stoops, the Sooners never had a losing season, went to a bowl game every season, and never were sanctioned by the NCAA during Stoops eighteen years at the helm. Add to the fact, the College Football Coaches Association voted Bob Stoops as the coach they’d most want their sons to play for.
This last season with the Joe Mixon issues was the only time in eighteen years I seriously questioned a decision by Bob Stoops. I still disagree with what he did. But he took the heat. Hopefully, Joe Mixon grows from all of this and makes all of us realize redemption is a very big deal in the journey of life.
I like what Stoops did today. The program is in good shape and he’s leaving with two straight Big 12 titles and a Sugar Bowl win over Auburn. He’s leaving on a high note with the stadium newly renovated.
In closing, the thing which impresses me the most about Stoops is how he won ten conference titles with a multitude of quarterbacks. It makes for a great trivia question. The answer is …Josh Huepel, Nate Hbyl, Jason White, Paul Thompson, Sam Bradford, Landry Jones, and Baker Mayfield.
White and Bradford won Heismans. Huepel and Mayfield were Heisman finalists. And Paul Thompson’s season of redemption was one of my favorite OU football seasons. Paul Thompson’s season just made you feel good as a fan of the game.
It was a glorious run. Some of my best memories with my father were at OU games during the Stoops Era.
Thanks for the very special memories, Bob Stoops.
The most fun ever in a loss. You just kind of sat there in the stadium awed by what happened.