For a moment I felt as if I had been sent spinning into senselessness by an Oklahoma twister. There before me at Tuesday’s Orange Bowl news conference was Bob Stoops scoffing at a question about replacing John Cooper at Ohio State.
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Last August I scoffed at questions about Bob Stoops replacing Boob–sorry, Bob–Davie at Notre Dame. I was asked in my hometown of Oklahoma City, where I go once a year to see old friends, Sooners fanatics all. One does a talk-radio show. I’m a frequent guest.
Last summer, caller after caller asked me what had become the most troubling question in all the Sooner Nation: Will Notre Dame steal Stoops?
Mystified, I said I hadn’t once heard Stoops rumored as ND’s next Bob. I did not say what I was thinking: Stoops’ Sooners had lost at Notre Dame during a 7-5 1999 season that ended with an Independence Bowl lossto Ole Miss. I could see the headline: “Notre Dame Stoops for another 7-5 Bob.”
Yet these folks already spoke of Stoops with reverence once reserved for Barry Switzer, the charming rogue who coached Oklahoma to eight Orange Bowls. What was I missing?
I was surprised when Stoops was chosen in 1998 over–remember this?–Gary Barnett. Former Oklahoma quarterback Dean Blevins, an ABC sideline reporter, broke the story that Barnett was the leading candidate to replace Switzer protege John Blake. Then, on his TV show in Oklahoma City, Blevins said he had spoken with Barnett, who was set to take the job if his wife would leave Evanston.
But Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione spared Mrs. Barnett the “Green Acres” humiliation by unveiling a guy who hadn’t made any reporter’s list of candidates. Stoops played at Cardinal Mooney High in Youngstown, Ohio and walked on at Iowa, where he turned himself into a Doug Plank of a knock-your-block-off safety. He has the cauliflower nose to prove it.
But to Sooners fans the hire initially sounded as if OU had drilled another dry hole. Stoops had no OU connections. He hadn’t been a head coach. He was only 38. So what if he had been Steve Spurrier’s defensive coordinator? That’s like being the ’85 Bears offensive coordinator.
Now imagine if purple-forever Barnett had left Northwestern for Oklahoma. Talk about “The Grapes of Wrath.” Would his 12-0 Sooners be playing for the national championship?
Last August I would have said Ohio-bred Stoops would hitchhike from Norman to Columbus to replace Cooper. Now Oklahoma insiders figure Ohio State will call but Stoops will decline an interview. Stoops again has made Oklahoma the center of the college football map and he’s working on one of the nation’s top recruiting classes. Wouldn’t Ohio State be at best a lateral move?
How quickly things change in a profession whose bottom line is bragging rights. A coach’s fate hinges on how many times he can take boosters on holiday trips to fair-weather cities and provide them the right to wear their colors proudly, especially after the game. This week Miami’s South Beach has been a sea of OU red. But in Tampa after Monday’s Outback Bowl, the predominant red was on the faces of Ohio State fans. An undermanned Cinderella from South Carolina had embarrassed Cooper’s crew.
Cooper’s epitaph: 3-8 in bowls, 2-10-1 against Michigan. Unlike Stoops, he was never able to measure up to player-magnet tradition he inherited. You could win a Super Bowl with all the Cooper recruits who became NFL stars. But Cooper couldn’t keep them in school long enough or go unbeaten with them.
With his John Wayne cadence and defiant confidence, Stoops has surprised and impressed me this week. He’s much more commanding than Davie. Eye-opening bowl victories by Oklahoma victims Nebraska and Kansas State make you think Stoops might be right when he says his Sooners shouldn’t be 12-point underdogs to Florida State. Then again, if Nebraska hadn’t scored 66 on Northwestern, Ohio-bred Randy Walker surely would be on Ohio State’s short list.
The one lingering question about Stoops concerns a left-handed quarterback who came from nowhere–well, South Dakota by way of Utah. Would Stoops have achieved god status so quickly in “Switzer”land without all the unlikely plays made by Josh Heupel? My friends once mispronounced his name “Hoople.” Now “Hypull” is a senior.
I figure OU will lose a close game to FSU. But lose badly and Stoops might not scoff about the next Ohio State question.