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One and Done

How Bob Stoops changed college football.

By Kyle Jordan FergusonPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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A new college football season has nearly come and gone without a familiar face. Bob Stoops shocked college football fans earlier this summer with his retirement. As a fan and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, I felt a few things: sadness, appreciation, but also uneasiness. It is hard to say a program that saw so much success in an almost 20-year period underachieved.

However, the more I thought about it, the more that rang true. Thinking back to the athletes that walked through the tunnel at Owen Field, how did this team only win one title? You cannot help but wonder what if. What if Mark Bradley does not touch that punt against USC, or what if Demarco is healthy and plays in the title game against Florida? At least three of Chris Browns’ runs in that game get housed if Demarco is toting the rock. The fact that the likes of Adrian Peterson, Ryan Broyles and Sam Bradford could not produce a title is mind-boggling. With that, coaching must be a part of the conversation.

Now that his tenure at Oklahoma is complete, it is time to put his career in a historical context. Where he ranks among Bud and Barry is subject to a few factors, titles being the key one. He will no doubt go down as one of the most successful coaches to walk the sidelines of this era in college football.

Three BCS Title game appearances, one Final Four appearance, ten Big XII titles, two Heisman winners, 142 players total and 83 drafted in the NFL prove his impact on the game. His lone title will put him in the conversation, and his sheer dominance of the Big XII conference during the BCS era are inarguable. Generally, in sports conversations, I do not hold participants accountable for their status solely based on titles, but for coaches, the criteria are different. They are judged by the talent they put on the field, and the consistency in which they do so. Titles also play a big part.

Since Big Game took over in 1999, the program has not looked back. A National Title in his second season with subpar talent speaks volumes. Realistically, the 2000 championship team does not stand next to the team that got embarrassed by USC in the Orange Bowl in 2005 or the 2009 team that lost to Florida. The 2000 team got hot early and never let off the gas. I mean, Red October still gives me chills when I see old clips, but that team would not match up athletically with either aforementioned team.

The evolution of the program under Coach Stoops over his tenure is apparent. In his early years, he managed lesser talent at high success rates using innovation, trickery and a great staff. As years passed, the original characters moved on from the staff, and that dwindled. Trickery, in large part, because the caliber of players he recruited got better, which is understandable.

That 2005 class, led by Adrian Peterson and Rhett Bomar being his best to memory, signified the shift. Better players should (and did) translate wins. The 2009 team was statistically the greatest offense in the history of college football, stamping his impact. No offensive scheme since the wishbone has had such a lasting impact on the game as the air raid. Sped-up tempo offensively was a staple of that team. No huddle, up-tempo offensive is now something that can be seen throughout not only the Big XII, but throughout college football. Oh, and got Sam Bradford a huge bag of money. Stoops gets credit for that.

Sports, for the most part, are not complicated. Winning is equated to talent and proper management of that talent. You can see this from the grade school level all the way up to the professional level. It would be hard to argue any other coach throughout their tenure at one school over the previous 20 years has consistently given their fan base a better product than Bob Stoops. Just look at Fox or CBS on a Sunday afternoon; the proof is there.

The question then becomes, how does that only produce one National Championship? When I think of the great college coaches who have seen the level of success that Stoops has, they have one thing in common: players. The problem is that generally results in multiple titles—see Urban Meyer and Nick Saban who have won multiple in less time. For whatever reason, in the latter part of Stoops' career, his teams could not get over the hump.

Recently, lack of talent has been the cause. I have been a Stoops apologist in this argument for the better part of the last decade. Arguing that conference titles matter, and that the program he took over was in shambles, etc. But it is not enough anymore, and truly in retrospect, it never was. Stoops should have won more titles, and I cannot figure out why he didn’t. Sure, his legacy as one of the greatest coaches in college football history is solidified given the points made above, no question. His impact on college football can be seen every Saturday from outrageous scores, fast0paced offenses and tired linemen. But at Oklahoma, titles are the marker by which success is determined. Put simply: Barry three, Bud three, Bob one. Scoreboard.

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Kyle Jordan Ferguson

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