Bob Stoops 2.0: Adapting to Get Back on Top in His 17th Year at Oklahoma

For three decades, Bob Stoops watched his dad, Ron Stoops, go to work at the same place, Cardinal Mooney High, in tough Youngstown, Ohio. That's 30 years as an assistant football coach working for the same head coach every day. Not a ton of money; no spotlight. Thirty years. Back then, it was called loyalty.

Bob saw. He followed.

"I watched my dad watching reel-to-reel tape on the kitchen table," he told Bleacher Report recently. "He loved his job, working with kids. He's a guy who wouldn't change a day in his life for anything."

So now, Stoops is starting his 17th year as head coach at Oklahoma. It is the second-longest tenure of any major college head football coach, after Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer (29 years). Loyalty? Both coaches have fans looking at them sideways.

Season	W-L	Bowl
2014	8-5	Russell Athletic Bowl-L
2013	11-2	Sugar Bowl-W
2012	10-3	Cotton Bowl-L
2011	10-3	Insight Bowl-W
2010	12-2	Fiesta Bowl-W
2009	8-5	Sun Bowl-W
2008	12-2	BCS Championship-L
2007	11-3	Fiesta Bowl-L
2006	11-3	Fiesta Bowl-L
2005	8-4	Holiday Bowl-W
2004	12-1	Orange Bowl-L
2003	12-2	Sugar Bowl-L
2002	12-2	Rose Bowl-W
2001	11-2	Cotton Bowl-W
2000	13-0	Orange Bowl-W
1999	7-5	Independence Bowl-L

Stoops has had chances to go to the NFL, to Florida. He's been in the Notre Dame talks. Not long ago, Oklahoma was Alabama and Stoops was Nick Saban. Now, Oklahoma is either: A) on a downward trend; or B) hitting a bump in the road. Either way, it is not a dominant national force, and people wonder why Stoops has stayed so long, whether he has outlived his shelf life and missed his chance.

Who stays anywhere this long anymore? In any profession?

It might seem weird to you and me. But not to Stoops.

Stoops knows that when you stay for the long term, times change and you have to adapt. You have to change over and over again. You have to re-invent yourself.

So welcome to Bob Stoops 2.0. Or whatever this version is. He has swapped several offensive coaches, put in a new coordinator to modernize with a spread formation—though that means a version of the Air Raid Stoops was using when he had OU on top. He also has a few new defensive assistants.

"I don't look at anything we're doing as re-inventing," he said. "We're going back to what we were. Hopefully, the Air Raid's back, only with some power running. But you don't have to have two fullbacks and two tight ends to have power."

Know this about Stoops and anyone from Youngstown: When they sound disagreeable, that's just how they talk. Years ago, I used to watch Stoops and his brother Mike as defensive assistants at Kansas State, sitting in the coaches box next to the press box, basically drowning out the crowd with their screaming and fist-pounding on the table and windows.

It was all in love, I'm pretty sure.

Coaching is a passion for Stoops and his family. Stoops' brother Mike is OU's defensive coordinator, Mark is head coach at Kentucky and Ron Jr. is co-defensive coordinator at Youngstown State. It's an infection for them or something.

As is competitiveness, the need to win.

Now, Oklahoma is a nationally ranked program, yet not a national title contender. Stoops knows. And at least one publication says he's at a crossroads in his career.

"I don't know how crossroads it can be," he said. "Anytime you don't win the championship at a place like ours, that's brought up. I don't think any other team in 12 of the last 15 years has more wins."

It wasn't enough last year, when OU started with fans thinking College Football Playoff and ending with an 8-5 record, with Baylor and TCU appearing to have blown past OU. Stoops feels duped by his own past.

In 1999, when he had Mike Leach as the offensive coordinator, OU was running something similar to today's modern hurry-up, spread offenses. Then Leach left for Texas Tech, and OU slowly slipped back into a running scheme. As OU settled in, Baylor, TCU and others spread out. Lincoln Riley, part of the Leach coaching tree, had an offense at East Carolina last year that produced 533 yards a game.

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

"You know, six of the top 13 offenses last year are all from this family of coaches," Stoops said. "Washington State, Texas Tech, East Carolina, TCU. It goes on and on. I just didn't feel we were consistent enough. We ran the ball well but were terribly inconsistent throwing the football. In my eyes, we had far too many three-and-outs.

"Today, you have to stay on the field and, basically, hold serve like you do in tennis."

Stoops said he had become "too infatuated" with running quarterbacks. "But I always believed in the principles [of the Air Raid]."

The offense will look like TCU's, spread out, getting the ball in the hands of lots of players. The defense, Stoops said, has experience in the secondary and should get more comfortable facing the modern offenses now that it will see one every day in practice.

Even the quarterback is a fresh look, and an odd one: Baker Mayfield transferred to OU from Texas Tech and hadn't been released by the Red Raiders. So he never contacted Stoops to say he was coming.

"He never even called to ask permission to walk on," Stoops said. "He just showed up. I found out over the Internet that he was planning on transferring. People would ask and I'd say, 'Not as far as I know.' "

Also unknown is how the team will react to a racial scandal on campus this past spring. Frat members were seen on video singing a racist chant. Stoops led the team in a protest on campus.

"More than three quarters of the team is minority and that hit home," Stoops said. "We felt strong enough and said 'Let's do something about it.' "

Will OU be able to get its mojo back? I'm going with yes. Stoops is just 54, and the team never bottomed out. If it did, that was only in OU terms.

Times change fast, though. Mack Brown saw that a few years ago at Texas, as he went from a top national program to a faltering one in about 15 minutes. By the time he saw it coming, it had already run him over. He tried to switch to a hurry-up offense, but it was too late. He was out.

This isn't to lament the loss of loyalty. It's just to point it out. There is so much money in college football now, and that is mixed with the immediate and short-term thinking of a fanbase living on social media.

Meanwhile, Steve Spurrier, Stoops' old boss at Florida, has told him that head coaches shouldn't stay at one place too long anymore. Pat Riley used to have a 10-year rule. Stoops knows the dangers.

"In today's world, with so much media and so much exposure, it's natural that people want to hear something different," he said. "Expectations are…are you realistically always going to be undefeated or the champion? Sometimes there's a little bit of a feeling that just because you're somewhere [with a great history], you're going to be good."

So if the demands are impossible and the options are there, why stick around when a dip is inevitable?

"I've had the same president and athletic director for 17 years," Stoops said. "My children have only known one home. For some reason, it's been right to stay.

"You never know when it is time to leave. But years like last year didn't change all of it. That's just part of it anywhere you go."

So why not just stay?

Dove Men+Care Deodorant has partnered with University of Oklahoma head football coach Bob Stoops and the College Football Hall of Fame for the "Caring Coach" campaign. The "Caring Coach" campaign launches on Saturday, August 29 with a youth football clinic at the College Football Hall of Fame with Hall of Famer and former Super Bowl winner Kevin Butler and former Atlanta Falcon Bobby Butler.