OKLAHOMA CITY | They&#8217;d lined up early waiting to see him, hoping for a glimpse and a handshake and maybe a quick word.</p><p>The National Cowboy &amp; 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 &#8220;OU&#8221; shirts whispering his name, officials conferring on when he might walk through the door, the tables set, the podium where he&#8217;d rally the base decorated and waiting.</p><p>And then Bob Stoops appeared, smiled wide and moved through the crowd &#8212; 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&#8217;s bred big expectations: The sense that the man everyone had come to see was living under the only shadow he couldn&#8217;t outcoach, outrecruit or outwork.</p><p>His own.</p><p>Oklahoma ain&#8217;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.</p><p>In Oklahoma, a stranger can&#8217;t drive four miles through the dusty terrain without sports radio giving voice to fans still complaining about last year&#8217;s 48-28 loss to West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl.</p><p>In Oklahoma, Bob Stoops &#8212; even after winning the 2000 national championship in only his second year on the job &#8212; isn&#8217;t just the golden child who delivered Sooners football back where it belonged. He&#8217;s also the guy who hasn&#8217;t done it again.</p><p>&#8220;There are very few programs like ours where people think of this as not being successful,&#8221; said Rick Knapp, executive director of the Touchdown Club, an Oklahoma alumni organization. &#8220;That&#8217;s really unfair and tough, but when you set the bar so high &#8212; and high early &#8212; that&#8217;s what you get.&#8221;</p><p>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.</p><p>&#8220;Believe me,&#8221; he&#8217;d tell them, &#8220;We&#8217;re also pursuing a national championship. That&#8217;s our ultimate goal. But those Big 12 championships don&#8217;t come by easily, either.&#8221;</p><p>But first, as he moved down the hallway chewing gum and ignoring the pop of flashbulbs, there was a moment&#8217;s glimpse of a man moving under the weight of his own success.</p><p>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.</p><p>The inscription next to it was meant for the president, but it could apply to the Oklahoma football coach as well:</p><p>It read: &#8220;His shoulders revealing the burden of his office.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226; &#8226; &#8226;</p><p>How quickly they forget.</p><p>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.</p><p>&#8220;Most people thought, hopefully, we can get back to being competitive in the South,&#8221; Knapp said. &#8220;The goal was to be able to beat Texas. Back then, that was it.&#8221;</p><p>Even that hadn&#8217;t gone well, with Texas posting a 6-2-1 record in the Red River Shootout from 1990-98.</p><p>Stoops went about building a team that could change these things. He hired a good chunk of Bill Snyder&#8217;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: