The Man Who Brought The Sooners Back

Jan. 4, 2001

By JIM LITKE
AP Sports Writer

MIAMI - The walk to his office each day carries him past cases filled with trophies, down hallways echoing with the successes of predecessors named Bud and Barry.

Most young coaches walking into a program as storied as Oklahoma's would have been intimidated. Bob Stoops was inspired. Faster than anybody could have imagined, he proved he belonged.

Stoops was only 20 when Barry Switzer's Sooners beat Bobby Bowden and Florida State in the Orange Bowl in successive years, 1980-81, too young to know then that he would one day extend the tradition.

"No one can say anymore that was then," Stoops said. "This is now."

And yet, when he arrived on Oklahoma's doorstep in December, 1998, he wouldn't discuss long-range plans. He doesn't believe in them.

It might be because Stoops was so successful so soon at every job he held before arriving at Oklahoma. Or because he is such a quick study himself. Or maybe, when the father and coach who taught you everything important about life and football suffers a fatal heart attack while working a game, well, that makes you hurry just that little bit more.

Whichever it was, the next time Stoops walks into his office at Norman, it will be as the coach of the national champions.

And he did it in just his second season on the job.

At the tender age of 40.

By smothering a Florida State team that was the dynasty of the 1990s, with an offense that was supposed to be state-of-the-art well into the new century.

"To be honest with you," Stoops said, "we fully expected to play that way."

He had just lifted the crystal glass football from atop the championship trophy and passed it to the kids celebrating behind him. Gatorade from the obligatory drenching still dripped off his cap. Oklahoma's perfect season was now in the record books, its seventh national championship secured with a 13-2 win over the Seminoles.

"It's easy to say," Stoops said above the roar behind him, "that Oklahoma is back."

Yet when Stoops turned up in Norman, no one dreamed Oklahoma would be back so soon.

He was a smart, tough, All-Big Ten defensive back at Iowa who patiently built a reputation as an even smarter, tougher defensive coach everywhere he worked. As a graduate assistant at his alma mater, during a quick stopover at Kent State, during a long layover at Kansas State, and finally at Florida, where the Gators won a national championship, a Southeastern Conference championship and made three bowl appearances. There, Stoops' defense consistently ranked among the best in the country. During that run, he beat Florida State twice.

Maybe that's why coach Bobby Bowden was hardly surprised when another brilliant Stoops defensive effort steamrolled his Seminoles again.

"We simply could get nothing going offensively. They did a great job of confusing us defensively. I'd say he made all the right moves," Bowden said.

But Stoops almost didn't get the chance. When athletic director Joe Castiglione named him to restore the glory of the Switzer and Bud Wilkinson eras, the choice was met with almost deafening silence. Stoops couldn't have been better regarded inside football circles, but he was hardly known outside them.

Besides, Oklahoma had won 12 games in the previous three years. But then Stoops took the microphone, and with a confidence those close to him never find surprising, he said the Sooners would be ready to compete with anybody on their schedule.

Not in two seasons, or three, or five. But next season. Then he took Oklahoma to a 7-5 finish and made believers of every Sooner past and present.

"You could see right away this guy has what it takes," Switzer said. "Personality, smarts, toughness - it was part of his package from the start. He was clearly a young man who didn't have to be shown things more than once."

Stoops got that from his dad. Ron, the defensive coordinator at Cardinal Mooney High for 28 years, and Dee Dee raised four sons and two daughters, and no one who watched them grow up in Youngstown, Ohio, ever doubted the boys would follow in their father's footsteps.

Bob brought Mike along to help with the defense when he got the job at Oklahoma, leapfrogging his oldest brother, Ron Jr., into the bigtime. But all of them were forged the same way - watching the love and dedication that Ron Sr., poured into his work. Ron Jr. was coaching against his father in 1988 when Ron Sr. suffered a fatal heart attack on the bench.

It was one of the first things Bob recalled in the moments following his greatest triumphs.

"He was a long-time defensive coach and he was very special to me and my brothers," Stoops said. "The good Lord has a good coach up there."

And Ron Sr. would be proud to know that he left a pretty fair one behind.