Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops stiff-arms retirement query

Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder, 76, usually gets the “How much longer are you going to coach?” treatment at Big 12 Media Days.

This time it was Bob Stoops, and he seemed a bit taken aback by the question.

“You know that’s something you would ask a guy that’s maybe 65, but I’m only 55,” Stoops said. “So I don’t see myself (retiring) anytime soon, a question that I need to answer. I would like to think I’m in really good health.

“I take care of myself. I can’t wait for this season, much like I couldn’t wait 17 years ago for me first one as a head coach. So hopefully I’m going another 10 years or so. I don’t think I’ll be one of those guys, God bless him, like Bill Snyder. I’m not going that long. But I sure can go to retirement age.”

Stoops is college football’s longest tenured coach at the same school, by about a week. He had interviewed at Oklahoma and Iowa, his alma mater, and took the Sooners’ job. A week later, Kirk Ferentz was named the head coach of the Hawkeyes, and he’s No. 2 on the tenure list.

Snyder has been at his school longer than both, starting in Manhattan in 1989, but he stepped down and was out of the for three seasons (2006-08) before returning to Kansas State.

This story was originally published July 19, 2016 at 2:27 PM with the headline "Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops stiff-arms retirement query."