Oklahoma Sooners football under Bob Stoops

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Bob Stoops is the current head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners football team which represents the University of Oklahoma in the NCAA Division I Bowl Subdivision. He was hired in 1999 and won the national championship the next year after going undefeated through the regular season. Under his direction, the Sooners have won five Big 12 conference championships, produced 22 All-Americans, had one Heisman Trophy winner (and two runners-up), and visited all four BCS bowl games.

Contents 1 Seasons 1.1 1999 1.2 2000 1.3 2001 1.4 2002 1.5 2003 1.6 2004 1.7 2005 1.8 2006 2 Legacy 3 References

[edit] Seasons

Year	Coach	Overall	Conference	Standing	Bowl	Rank#
1999	Bob Stoops	7-5	5-3		L Independence
2000	Bob Stoops	13-0	8-0	1	W Orange †	1
2001	Bob Stoops	11-2	6-2		W Cotton	6
2002	Bob Stoops	12-2	6-2	1	W Rose †	3
2003	Bob Stoops	12-2	8-0	1	L Sugar †	3
2004	Bob Stoops	12-1	8-0	1	L Orange †	3
2005	Bob Stoops	8-4	6-2	3	W Holiday	22
2006	Bob Stoops	11-3	7-1	1	L Fiesta †	11
Total:		78-27
National Championship         Conference Title         Conference Division Title
†Indicates BCS bowl game. #Rankings from final Coaches Poll of the season.

[edit] 1999

After five straight non-winning seasons and not making a bowl appearance for four years, athletic director Joe Castiglione decided to fire three-year coach John Blake and hire Stoops away from his job as defensive coordinator at the University of Florida. Others considered for the job included Barry Alvarez, Jim Donnan, Bob Toledo, Dennis Franchione, Tommy Bowden, Gary Barnett, and Mike Bellotti.^[1] The decision to promote a defensive coordinator to head coach ran contrary to the conventional wisdom of the time, but from the beginning Stoops was expected to be an exception to that theory, even without any experience calling offensive plays.^[2]

Stoops was able to build on the solid defensive recruiting of his predecessor (who signed future All-Americans Rocky Calmus and Roy Williams) and brought in junior college quarterback Josh Heupel to run the offense. The 1999 team went 7-5 after starting the season with three wins. They won at home over Indiana State University and Baylor and pulled off the road upset against Louisville. The Sooners lost the next two games at Notre Dame in South Bend and to Texas in the Red River Shootout and ended the season with a 25-27 loss to Mississippi in the Independence Bowl.^[3]

[edit] 2000

Main article: 2000 Oklahoma Sooners football team

In 2000, the Sooners opened the season ranked number 19,^[4] the first time they had broken into a pre-season poll in five years. Heupel was expected to have a good season with a year of experience in Stoops's system and an improved defense would help the Sooners be "a headache for the opposition" all season.^[5] The team started with four straight wins, cruising over early opponents by a combined score of 176-51.

The Sooners entered the annual Red River Rivalry game ranked 10th in the nation while Texas had a 3-1 record and was ranked number 11. In what was then the most lopsided game in the history of the rivalry, Oklahoma beat Texas by the score of 63-14. Sooner running back Quentin Griffin set a single-game school record with six touchdowns while Heupel had 275 yards through the air with one touchdown and no interceptions. Texas was held to an all-time low -7 rushing yards on the game.^[6] They went on to narrowly beat second ranked Kansas State 41-31 and then defeat the number one ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers 31-14, taking over the number one ranking in the process. The Sooners held on to it through the rest of the season and earned a spot in the Orange Bowl and the right to play for the national championship.

The Florida State Seminoles were selected as the Sooners' opponent in the BCS National Championship Game and were favored to win by 10½ points.^[7] Extra tension was laid on the game by the results of the Heisman balloting where Florida State's Chris Weinke beat out Heupel for the award by only 76 points.^[8] The Sooners won the game 13-2, the second lowest scoring Orange Bowl ever and the first time all season that Weinke did not throw a touchdown pass,^[7] to claim the Sears Trophy and Oklahoma's seventh national title.

[edit] 2001

The 2001 Oklahoma Football season started off with a bang, literally. On the first play from scrimmage against North Carolina, highly touted defensive tackle recruit Tommie Harris, now an All-Pro with the Chicago Bears, brought down the ball carrier for a three-yard loss. The Sooners wanted to make a good impression after winning the National Championship the season before, and through the first few games of the season, they did just that. The Sooners took care of North Carolina (41-27), Air Force (44-3), and North Texas (37-10) with very little resistance. However, in the fourth game of the season, an aggressive blitzing scheme kept Sooner QB Nate Hybl on his back and the Wildcats in the game before OU finally pulled out the victory over Kansas State, 38-37. This set up another Cotton Bowl battle against OU's most-hated rival - the Texas Longhorns. This year's version of the battle would turn into a game that fans from both teams would never forget thanks to Sooner defensive back Roy Williams, now an All-Pro safety with the Dallas Cowboys. Late in the game, Williams launched himself over a blocker and into Sooner lore by batting down the Chris Simms pass into the arms of linebacker Teddy Lehman, now playing with the Detroit Lions. This play has since come to be known as the "Superman" play, and was the play that launched Roy Williams' Heisman Trophy candidacy. (He would wind up finishing fourth in Heisman voting.) The OU / Texas game is also remembered for another reason... it was the day that future Heisman Trophy winner Jason White came into the game to replace starter Nate Hybl after he was injured. White played incredibly well in backup duty, exciting Sooner fans for both the immediate and long-term future of the QB position.

After the Texas win, the Sooners went on to dominate two more conference foes (Kansas 38-10, Baylor 33-17) before a battle against rival Nebraska. And, as so many games in the past were, this OU / Nebraska game was a battle of #1 vs. #2. This time, however, the Sooners would suffer their first setback of the season, losing 20-10 on a late trick play that launched Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch's Heisman campaign. Crouch would go on to win the Heisman, largly on the strength of his performance against the Sooners that afternoon, which looked even better after now-starter Jason White went down with an injury and a cold Nate Hybl was brought back in, this time against Nebraska's hard-hitting defense.

Following that loss with three more blowouts (Tulsa 58-0, Texas A&M 31-10, and Texas Tech 30-13) the Sooners would play their final regular season game at home against rival Oklahoma State, losing the game 16-13 due, primarily, to the ineffectiveness of the Sooner offense.

The Sooners would end their season in the Cotton Bowl against the Arkansas Razorbacks, winning a defensive battle 10-3 and getting Sooner fans excited about the team's prospects for the next season.

[edit] 2002

[edit] 2003

Stoops' teams continued to excel. He brought his 2003 and 2004 teams back to the BCS title game, but lost both contests. His 2003 team was the highest scoring team in OU's history, putting up 601 points while only allowing 214 by opponents. This season included seven games of 50 points or more, a 77-0 win over Texas A&M and a 65-13 victory against Texas, both schools' biggest loss. The team was upset in the Big 12 Championship Game by a Kansas State Wildcat team that all the experts thought had no chance against what some were calling one of the greatest teams in college football history. The Sooners eventually lost to LSU in the BCS title game. That year, Jason White became OU's fourth Heisman Trophy winner.

[edit] 2004

In 2004 the Sooners opened up as pre-season number 2. They went 12-0 during the regular season and went on to play USC in the BCS National Championship game. USC and Oklahoma were ranked #1 and #2, respectively. The game received an immense amount of build up. Both teams featured a Heisman Trophy Winner, in quarterbacks Matt Leinart and Jason White, and both teams featured a Heisman Trophy candidate at running back in Reggie Bush and Adrian Peterson. The game was claimed by some to be "the game of the century." Despite considerable hype for the game however, it ended up being completely one sided, as USC defeated Oklahoma 55-19.

[edit] 2005

The Sooners finished the season with an 8-4 record, the worst season since 1999. In 2005, redshirt freshman Rhett Bomar beat out Jason White's backup quarterback, Paul Thompson, for the starting job. Thompson was moved to the wide receiver spot for the rest of the season. They lost their opening game against TCU and went on to open the season 2-3 with additional losses at UCLA and against Texas.

The team won their next four games before suffering a controversial loss at Texas Tech. Tech's running back Taurean Henderson scored as time expired, though to many fans of Oklahoma it appeared that he was tackled short of the goal line. The play was reviewed by replay officials, but video replays were deemed inconclusive.^[9]

The Sooners finished third in the Big 12 behind the Longhorns (who went on to win the 2005 BCS National Championship) and the Texas Tech Red Raiders (Oklahoma and Texas Tech both had conference records of 6-2, but Texas Tech won the heads up match and thus held the tie-breaker). The unranked Sooners would represent the Big 12 in the Holiday Bowl where they would play the sixth-ranked Oregon Ducks. OU defeated the Ducks 17-14; Bomar was named the Bowl MVP and the Sooners finished the season ranked #22. On July 11, 2007 the NCAA announced the Sooners would have to vacate every game from 2005 due to NCAA violations relating to Rhett Bomar and J.D. Quinn receiving money from a car dealership for work they did not perform. The punishment effectively gave the team an 0-4 record,^[10] however, on appeal, those wins were reinstated in early 2008.^[11]

[edit] 2006

Main article: 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team

2006 was a very tumultuous year for the Sooners. One week before fall practice began, returning quarterback Rhett Bomar and J.D. Quinn, a projected starter on the offensive line, were kicked off the team for violating NCAA rules when they received payment for work they did not do. Paul Thompson, who had not practiced in the quarterback role for nearly a year, was asked to move back to quarterback which he did. In mid-September, OU played the University of Oregon for the third time in three years. The Sooners lost this game 33-34. During the game a controversy arose when game officials awarded an onside kick to the Ducks when it should have been Oklahoma's ball.^[12][13] Following the game, all officials were suspended for one game but replay official Gordon Riese said he would take the year off;^[12] later in the year, he would quit completely.^[14] Gordon Riese later acknowledged that he knew OU recovered the onside kick but replay rules prevented him from correcting the on-field officials.^[15] A few weeks later, OU lost to rival Texas. Following these setbacks, the team regrouped and the defense vastly improved. Following the Oregon game, the defense was ranked 97th nationally^[16] but by the end of the regular season, they were ranked 17th.^[17]

Following the Texas game, OU played Iowa State and soundly defeated them 34-9. However, on the final touchdown drive for the Sooners, star running back Adrian Peterson suffered a broken collar bone when he was tripped up while sprinting into the end zone. The Sooners would turn to two untested running back to replace the Heisman-hopeful Peterson, Allen Patrick, a junior, and Chris Brown, a freshman. The Sooners did not miss a step. The team went on a seven game winning streak to finish Big 12 conference play 11-2. This streak included road wins over a couple ranked opponents including Texas A&M and Missouri. The defending national champions Texas Longhorns were favored to win the Big 12 but they suffered two losses to finish their regular season which sent OU to the Big 12 Championship game against a former rival, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Sooners defeated the 19th ranked Cornhuskers 21-7 to win the Big 12 title for the fourth time under Bob Stoops. The Sooners lost in overtime by a score of 43-42 to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. Given all that happened during the Sooners 2006 season, many consider it to be Stoops's best coaching job.^[18]

The football program remains the primary breadwinner for the Oklahoma athletic program. It accounts for 70% of the Athletic Department's income but just 30% of its expenses.^[19]

[edit] Legacy

Many players have come through Stoops's teams and are now in the NFL. Some of these include, Roy Williams(Dallas Cowboys), Tommie Harris (Chicago Bears), Jammal Brown (New Orleans Saints), Mark Clayton, Dan Cody, Teddy Lehman, Dusty Dvoracek, Davin Joseph, Brodney Pool, and Mark Bradley. Several assistant coaches to Stoops's have received head coaching positions from other schools: Chuck Long, Mark Mangino, Mike Stoops, Mike Leach.

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[edit] References