Oklahoma’s Stoops carries burden of his early success

OKLAHOMA CITY | They’d lined up early waiting to see him, hoping for a glimpse and a handshake and maybe a quick word.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum sat ready for his arrival: The security officials in the cowboy hats and boots on the lookout, finely carved statues as a backdrop, the fans with their “OU” shirts whispering his name, officials conferring on when he might walk through the door, the tables set, the podium where he’d rally the base decorated and waiting.

And then Bob Stoops appeared, smiled wide and moved through the crowd — and there it was, in some of the comments folks muttered, in the looks Stoops gave to certain questions, in the very Oklahoma air that’s bred big expectations: The sense that the man everyone had come to see was living under the only shadow he couldn’t outcoach, outrecruit or outwork.

His own.

Oklahoma ain’t Missouri or Kansas. Here, where the dust bowl defined a state and beating Texas became a religion, winning five Big 12 championships in eight years is no longer enough.

In Oklahoma, a stranger can’t drive four miles through the dusty terrain without sports radio giving voice to fans still complaining about last year’s 48-28 loss to West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl.

In Oklahoma, Bob Stoops — even after winning the 2000 national championship in only his second year on the job — isn’t just the golden child who delivered Sooners football back where it belonged. He’s also the guy who hasn’t done it again.

“There are very few programs like ours where people think of this as not being successful,” said Rick Knapp, executive director of the Touchdown Club, an Oklahoma alumni organization. “That’s really unfair and tough, but when you set the bar so high — and high early — that’s what you get.”

Back at the museum, Stoops was about to step up before that podium and in no uncertain terms remind all these folks just what he and his boys had accomplished.

“Believe me,” he’d tell them, “We’re also pursuing a national championship. That’s our ultimate goal. But those Big 12 championships don’t come by easily, either.”

But first, as he moved down the hallway chewing gum and ignoring the pop of flashbulbs, there was a moment’s glimpse of a man moving under the weight of his own success.

In this one moment, Stoops looked smaller than usual. His face held a slight grimace. And behind him, over his left shoulder, was a giant statue of a daunted-looking Abraham Lincoln, his face stern.

The inscription next to it was meant for the president, but it could apply to the Oklahoma football coach as well:

It read: “His shoulders revealing the burden of his office.”

• • •

How quickly they forget.

Before Stoops arrived in 1999, the Sooners had not had an outright winning season since 1993. Their record during that stretch was 23-33-1. They reached only one bowl game during that run, the 1994 Copper Bowl, which they lost 31-6 to BYU.

“Most people thought, hopefully, we can get back to being competitive in the South,” Knapp said. “The goal was to be able to beat Texas. Back then, that was it.”

Even that hadn’t gone well, with Texas posting a 6-2-1 record in the Red River Shootout from 1990-98.

Stoops went about building a team that could change these things. He hired a good chunk of Bill Snyder’s staff from Kansas State. He recruited a kid playing quarterback at a community college in Utah named Josh Heupel. He looked folks in the eye and told them what they needed to hear:

Oklahoma can be great again.

Things came together fast — faster than anyone imagined.

“That’s to Bob’s detriment,” said Kenny Mossman, a senior associate athletic director at Oklahoma. “He doesn’t get nearly the credit he deserves for the turnaround.”

That first year, the team went 7-5, including a return to postseason play with a loss to Mississippi in the Independence Bowl.

The successes continued: Five straight wins over Texas, starting with same team that won the national title in 2000, leading Stoops to a 6-3 record against the Longhorns.

And so in two years the man had one national title. Problem was, winning the second one is even harder than the first. You’ve used up that good run of luck even as fans suddenly expect you to win the next big one.

“You feed ’em steak, they don’t want to go back to hamburger,” said Barry Switzer, who brought three national championships to Oklahoma in 1974, 1975 and 1985. “You’ve got to feed the monsters. That was my job for a while, and now it’s Bob who has to feed the monster.”

Or try to. Switzer was quick to point out, as he has to Stoops, that it takes a whole lot more than great coaching and hard work to do this thing twice.

“That’s what I told Bob when he got there, that every time you play a national championship game you aren’t always going to win it,” Switzer said. “You’re playing teams in those games as good as — or often, better — than you. Hell, you’re lucky to win half of them.”

It’s a lesson Stoops has learned the hard way.

In nine seasons at Oklahoma, Stoops has posted a 97-22 record. He’s led his teams to nine bowl games. He’s restored Oklahoma’s place atop the pinnacle of college football. He’s won more Big 12 championships than any other coach and established himself as one of the best program builders in the country.

And yet …

Four straight losses in Bowl Championship Series play.

Two missed opportunities at another national title.

And the continued talk locally and across the country that Bob Stoops can’t win — at least not anymore — the big one.

Which makes the man bristle.

“He goes, ‘Most people forget we beat Missouri, and then they say we can’t win the big game,’” Knapp said. “They forget Missouri was No. 1 in the nation when we beat them. The big game? That was one.”

It’s a point Stoops was quick to make this summer, at one point standing before a packed house and talking about Missouri and saying, “We played the No. 1 team in team in the country — away from home — in San Antonio, and we won the football game by I think 21 or so points.”

Be that as it may, Coach, the specter of what you accomplished in 2000 still hangs over you.

“He does embrace living in that shadow,” said Matt McMillen, the team’s football administrative coordinator and one of Stoops’ best friends. “In that upper echelon, people aren’t happy with 8-3 or 8-4. At Oklahoma and other places where you have the resources, those expectations ought to be there.”

They are, more than ever. This week, the Sooners start the season at No. 4 in the AP poll. Sam Bradford is coming off a season that included 36 touchdown passes — a record for a freshman — to only eight interceptions; the team boasts a solid offensive line and a coaching staff and fan base that feel poised for another run at a national championship.

Which brings us back to Bob Stoops Circa 2008 competing against Bob Stoops Circa 2000 — and all the talk of what he hasn’t done lately instead of what he has.

“He does have to remind people of all they’ve accomplished,” Knapp said. “That gets his ire up. I was with him once and someone said, ‘That was a great season except for that last game.’ And he said, ‘Would you rather have me lose to Texas, lose the South, not play for a Big 12 championship and go beat somebody in Shreveport?’ ”

Folks who have been around that temper — around Stoops snapping at fans who love him, even if they can’t help but criticize him — quickly point out that it’s that fiery competitiveness that has been a catalyst for Oklahoma’s success.

“No one’s more frustrated then Bob and the coaches about the BCS drought,” Knapp said. “And when you start losing these, there’s a lot more pressure.”

So it seems.

• • •

The wind has died down, the sun’s come out and the Oklahoma heat leaves you dripping wet and exhausted.

You go past the hundreds of fans who have shown up for one of the two practices open to the public this year, past the talk about “This better be the year,” to the sideline and the players crashing into each other for the Oklahoma Drill.

There he is, in the middle of it all, looking cool, focused and a little angry.

“Come on!” Stoops yells. “COME ON!”

Maybe, you think, watching the team practice and prepare to represent Sooner Nation, folks are ready to let last year be last year and this year start off with a fresh slate.

Or, uh, perhaps not.

“Obviously, he turned the program around,” says Matt Baysinger, a 19-year-old fan who sounds a lot like other fans. “But there’s a little sense that he’s living under his own shadow from early on. There’s this sense that we need to focus on more than winning the Big 12. The focus has to be on the bowl game.”

Mossman has seen all this before.

“I think that nationally and locally, there’s a bit of a difference in how people view this,” Mossman says. “Nationally, there’s an unbridled respect for the success he’s had. Locally, in your own backyard, maybe not as much.”

Practice ends. Fans walk toward off across the blazing parking lot toward the Lloyd Noble Center, where in a little while Stoops will sign autographs and listen to a few more comments about how he needs to win the big one this year. The players saunter off the field.

Stoops has made it clear he doesn’t want to talk right now, particularly not if the questions center around the failure to recapture that 2000 season.

Then, on the spur of the moment, he’s walking slowly toward you.

“You ready?”

Absolutely.

First question: So how did winning that national title in 2000 change things for you and Oklahoma?

“Well, it’s always incredibly positive,” he says. “Fortunately, we’ve got a good number of them. We have seven. So we had that tradition and history here that our players understand they need to live up to. Once you do win them, it gives players a good taste of it and what it takes to do it.”

Did that national title help make all these other successes possible?

“It always helps,” he says. “The more you win. Everyone talks facilities and a bunch of other things in regard to recruiting, but winning, I think, and having success is the No. 1 thing.”

And then the big one — the one he hates to hear, the one that gets his ire up: But what about having to live under the weight of your own accomplishments? Any concern about spending the rest of your career competing against your past successes?

“Why would it? Isn’t that what everyone goes after? I’d much rather win one than not. Let me answer it that way.”

Then he’s off. There are autographs to sign, tape to review and yet another season to prepare for — one where, if he comes up short of another national championship, he’ll be right back here again next season, answering the same questions.