News Article: Breaking: Bob Stoops Retiring from Oklahoma

dtgreg

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My Oklahoma buddies are thinking the NCAA is about to come calling, with a hammer. The quote was "We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. We've always had the best team money can buy." I mentioned the theory that Stoops might be pulling an Urban Meyer retirement so he can become a 10 mil a year man at Notre Dame in a year. They told me that would be wonderful but they're not buying it. Prepared for the worst.
 

RTR91

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My Oklahoma buddies are thinking the NCAA is about to come calling, with a hammer. The quote was "We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. We've always had the best team money can buy." I mentioned the theory that Stoops might be pulling an Urban Meyer retirement so he can become a 10 mil a year man at Notre Dame in a year. They told me that would be wonderful but they're not buying it. Prepared for the worst.
Why? I don't recall anything to suggest OU has been under investigation or anything.
 

BamaMoon

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It's a shame all of you couldn't have been in the stands at Owen Field that day. As the score mounted the OU student body began chanting "Roll Tide."
Owen...there's a legend that's been told here and other places that the OU band also played "Yeah Alabama" that day. Can you confirm or deny?
 

Snuffy Smith

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My Oklahoma buddies are thinking the NCAA is about to come calling, with a hammer. The quote was "We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. We've always had the best team money can buy." I mentioned the theory that Stoops might be pulling an Urban Meyer retirement so he can become a 10 mil a year man at Notre Dame in a year. They told me that would be wonderful but they're not buying it. Prepared for the worst.
I went to high school in Texas in the Switzer days (1975). Darrell Sheperd (Derrick's older brother & Sterling's uncle) went to the high school across town - decent QB. Dirt poor - recruited by Oklahoma. Week after his on campus visit he is driving around Odessa in a brand new Trans Am with "Darrell" written on the spoiler. Hmmm.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

owenfieldreams

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I was at that A&M game and no the band did not play Yea Alabama but the student section did chant Roll Tide. I can assure you that those being quoted as OU fans who are waiting for the other shoe to drop are incredibly ill-informed. There is no hidden issue related to Bob's retirement. I have numerous connections to the program and no-one has even hinted of such a circumstance.
 

selmaborntidefan

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My Oklahoma buddies are thinking the NCAA is about to come calling, with a hammer. The quote was "We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. We've always had the best team money can buy." I mentioned the theory that Stoops might be pulling an Urban Meyer retirement so he can become a 10 mil a year man at Notre Dame in a year. They told me that would be wonderful but they're not buying it. Prepared for the worst.
Attention all shoppers - two conspiracy theories for the price of one, only at Tide Fans!!!!
 

selmaborntidefan

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So what do you think Stoops' legacy will be? Early on he was the revered as one of the best coaches in football. Later in he became known as "Big Game Bob".
The guy has won nearly 80% of his games (.798). He took over a team riddled by probation and won a national title his second year there, a record that will probably never be broken (even Saban at Alabama took three years).

Ok, so he was 9-9 in bowl games.....Coach Bryant once went nearly a decade without winning a bowl game despite going every single year. And four of Stoops's 18 bowl games were head-to-head national title games. Sure, he was 1-3, but only in the 2004 USC game was he embarrassed and history will show that game technically never happened anyway.

Here's what a lot of you may not get.......as history marches on and the memories of people fade and new generations arise who weren't actually around to see him lose to Boise State or get blown out by WVA, Bob Stoops's name is going to rank with the coaching elites. Why? Because once the memories fade and the new folks come on the scene, the only thing left is statistics.

How many ACTIVE FBS coaches rank ahead of Stoops in winning percentage? Two

Urban Meyer
Chris Peterson (whose numbers are inflated by the fact Boise didn't play anyone - let's see what it is in five years)


Stoops is not in the Meyer-Saban-Bryant class, but statistically it's hard to argue he's anything more than just a cut below them. (And don't anyone give me this nonsense about "he only won one national championship" - Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl and Dan Marino didn't, too).


If you rank them on Tier A/B/C etc, I think Stoops is in the upper echelon of tier B.
 

TideEngineer08

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Someone posted this question on Twitter yesterday evening:

In the AP poll era (since 1936), has any school had a better list of their top 3 coaches than Oklahoma: Wilkinson, Switzer, and Stoops?

That's a fantastic list. I would argue, however, that ours is more impressive: Frank Thomas, Paul Bryant, and Nick Saban. There were several fans trying to put Gene Stallings on the list instead of Thomas, but Thomas had an more impressive record overall and was one of the first coaches to lead his team all 4 of the big bowls at that time: Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton (lost his only Sugar Bowl to Duke 29-26). His overall record was 147-33-9, including a 115-24-7 mark at Alabama. He is credited with 2 NCs (1934 and 1941) even if the '41 claim is dubious. He probably should have received some share of one in 1945 when he went 10-0 and thrashed USC in the Rose Bowl, but that was immediately following WWII and Army had gone undefeated and well, you're probably going to get left out no matter what you do in that situation.
 

BamaMoon

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Someone posted this question on Twitter yesterday evening:

In the AP poll era (since 1936), has any school had a better list of their top 3 coaches than Oklahoma: Wilkinson, Switzer, and Stoops?

That's a fantastic list. I would argue, however, that ours is more impressive: Frank Thomas, Paul Bryant, and Nick Saban. There were several fans trying to put Gene Stallings on the list instead of Thomas, but Thomas had an more impressive record overall and was one of the first coaches to lead his team all 4 of the big bowls at that time: Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton (lost his only Sugar Bowl to Duke 29-26). His overall record was 147-33-9, including a 115-24-7 mark at Alabama. He is credited with 2 NCs (1934 and 1941) even if the '41 claim is dubious. He probably should have received some share of one in 1945 when he went 10-0 and thrashed USC in the Rose Bowl, but that was immediately following WWII and Army had gone undefeated and well, you're probably going to get left out no matter what you do in that situation.
Coach Stallings is special to the older Bama fan simply because he restored Bama football to respectability and greatness after about a 10 year blight during the 80's. Coach Curry had recruited some good talent that got coach off to a fast start, after starting 0-3, but he had a great run in those 6 years that probably should've produced a little more if it were not for Florida and Auburn.

At least in my book he was a great coach and even bigger/better person!
 
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TrampLineman

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I believe OU is the only program that has had 4 H.C.'s with over 100 wins each. Owen Field is named after Bennie Owen. our first 100 plus victory coach.

We have 3 I think, Frank Thomas (115), Paul Bryant (232) and Nick Saban (116). Those totals are from Wiki so they might not be 100% true. That would be a good trivia question owen. I think Gene Stallings is our 4th highest at 70, but counting the games the NZAA took away I think he's at 62 now. I think Coach Saban's is iffy as well, it's either 114 or 116. That is if you are talking 100+ wins at the school itself and not overall.
 

TideEngineer08

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Coach Stallings is special to the older Bama fan simply because he restored Bama football to respectability and greatness after about a 10 year blight during the 80's. Coach Curry had recruited some good talent that got coach off to a fast start, after starting 0-3, but he had a great run in those 6 years that probably should've produced a little more if it were not for Florida and Auburn.

At least in my book he was a great coach and even bigger/better person!
He's very special to me. I was 7 when he was hired, so that was my introduction to Alabama football. I'm sure I watched some Perkins and Curry games with my dad, but I have no memories of them. I just think when you put the numbers against each other, it's hard to list him above Frank Thomas. Thomas retired from Alabama because of poor health. Had he been healthy, and coached longer, he would have likely had well over 200 wins, and perhaps the transition to Coach Bryant would have been a lot smoother.

But yes, I do think Stallings was a great coach, and is a great person as well. I'll never forget John Mark Stallings, and the impact he had on people. He and his family touched a lot of people in this state, whether they ever met or not. One of my absolute favorite Alabama memories was seeing him cheering with his mom in during the 1993 Sugar Bowl win against Miami.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Someone posted this question on Twitter yesterday evening:

In the AP poll era (since 1936), has any school had a better list of their top 3 coaches than Oklahoma: Wilkinson, Switzer, and Stoops?
This is the one thing that irks me with some Sooners fans - pretending football began in 1936. They used to claim they had "the most national titles in the poll era," not true anymore. Just a bone of contention because it's an Auburn-like word parsing I don't care for.

That's a fantastic list. I would argue, however, that ours is more impressive: Frank Thomas, Paul Bryant, and Nick Saban. There were several fans trying to put Gene Stallings on the list instead of Thomas, but Thomas had an more impressive record overall and was one of the first coaches to lead his team all 4 of the big bowls at that time: Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton (lost his only Sugar Bowl to Duke 29-26). His overall record was 147-33-9, including a 115-24-7 mark at Alabama. He is credited with 2 NCs (1934 and 1941) even if the '41 claim is dubious. He probably should have received some share of one in 1945 when he went 10-0 and thrashed USC in the Rose Bowl, but that was immediately following WWII and Army had gone undefeated and well, you're probably going to get left out no matter what you do in that situation.
And you didn't even mention Wallace Wade.....an .811 winning percentage at Alabama, two Rose Bowl wins and a tie in three appearances and went to Duke and they named the stadium after him. He didn't win any SEC titles because the SEC didn't exist until after he left Alabama. But Wade and Stallings in that group, too, puts us over the top as a whole in my view.
 

selmaborntidefan

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In my humble opinion Bob Stoops will go down as the greatest coach in Sooner history...and that's saying something. When you consider the times: limited s holarships, social media, restricted practice regulations, early NFL departure, the whole B.C.S. playoff drama, etc. Owen, Bud, or Barry never dealt with any of this.
I think you make a strong argument. Look, I'm not trying to discredit Bud Wilkinson in any way.....but the reason nobody is going to surpass that 47-game winning streak is because back when OU played eleven games only EIGHT out of those 47 opponents had more than six wins in a season (and most of those eight had seven). Granted, college football was a regional game and air travel was primitive compared to today - but the fact is that most of those teams were drastically overmatched anyway and a minimally competent coach should have been able to win about 30 of those 47 games just with the typical OU talent.

This is not unique to OU or college football. Let's face it: not only is nobody ever going to surpass Cy Young's 511 wins in baseball but it is doubtful that anyone is ever going to get within 150 wins of Cy. Young also holds the record for complete games (749), which is more games than Greg Maddux (the contemporary in wins closest to Young) even started. Young pitched in a day of four-man rotations, complete games without relief, pre-Tommy John surgery when it was more of a pitcher's game than a hitter's game (he retired in 1911 and slugger Babe Ruth was a rookie in 1914). I'm NOT saying Cy Young wasn't a great pitcher, but the stats are inflated by the time. (I've made this point rather gently with our own Coach Bryant - his record against winning teams was something less than stellar for most of his career).

Miami winning 34 games in a row a few years ago is FAR more impressive than OU's streak in the 1950s, and I say this as a bona fide Miami hater. But given the scholarship limitations, every game on TV (which helps smaller teams because you no longer MUST go to a big school to be seen by your family on TV), freshmen eligible, blacks actually permitted to play, and a dozen other things, the accomplishments today by Saban defy ALL logic. Stoops is a cut below, but it's hard to argue with his .798 winning percentage. The Big 12 may not have been the SEC of 2006-2013, but it's not the old Big Two/Little Six, either.

This is why I sincerely believe Stoops will be regarded as a very good just below Tier A coach. The "Big Game Bob" reputation will fade as time marches on precisely because he WON some big games, too. Coach Bryant isn't remembered for getting blown out by Nebraska in 1971 or his barely above average bowl record or his 0-7-1 bowl record from 1967-1974. And I think that while Stoops's accomplishments on paper aren't in the Bryant category, they will be looked at more fondly later than they are now.
 

rgw

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My Oklahoma buddies are thinking the NCAA is about to come calling, with a hammer. The quote was "We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. We've always had the best team money can buy." I mentioned the theory that Stoops might be pulling an Urban Meyer retirement so he can become a 10 mil a year man at Notre Dame in a year. They told me that would be wonderful but they're not buying it. Prepared for the worst.
I don't think you leave an Oklahoma when you've got it humming - and practically own lifetime contract because of your consistent success over your career - unless you are truly done. Nouveau Gators might not understand this but Oklahoma is a more prestigious job than Florida. You don't leave OU for a year layover to coach at Notre Dame. You've already arrived at a top 5 school, there is no reason to leave. I think Bob Stoops got a concerning physical result and decided to cut his career short rather than risk his heart health.
 

TideEngineer08

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This is the one thing that irks me with some Sooners fans - pretending football began in 1936. They used to claim they had "the most national titles in the poll era," not true anymore. Just a bone of contention because it's an Auburn-like word parsing I don't care for.



And you didn't even mention Wallace Wade.....an .811 winning percentage at Alabama, two Rose Bowl wins and a tie in three appearances and went to Duke and they named the stadium after him. He didn't win any SEC titles because the SEC didn't exist until after he left Alabama. But Wade and Stallings in that group, too, puts us over the top as a whole in my view.
To be fair, this wasn't asked by an OU fan, but a sports writer. And that's why I didn't mention Wade because of the parameters of the question.

When was Bennie Owen coach at OU? Was he pre-AP era?
 

selmaborntidefan

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To be fair, this wasn't asked by an OU fan, but a sports writer. And that's why I didn't mention Wade because of the parameters of the question.

When was Bennie Owen coach at OU? Was he pre-AP era?
Yes, he was 1905-26.

Sorry, I had a brain lock on your point.
 

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