Would Florida Be Better Off if Bob Stoops Had Taken the Job Before Ron Zook?

Editor's note: This article was written before the 2009 BCS championship game between Florida and Oklahoma.

Written by James Brown, Gatorsfirst.com Co-Founder

This is the question I’ve been wondering about since, oh, the moment I heard Steve Spurrier was leaving. I was a freshman in college at the time, and didn’t believe it at first.

But immediately I knew they’d pursue Bobby Stoops for the opening, as he was very beloved by much of Gator Nation for teaching our team how to play defense. He turned us down, to continue what he started (revived?) at Oklahoma. 

Mike Shanahan turned us down also, leading us to hire the Zooker. One faithful afternoon in Stark-Vegas a few years later, and I witnessed the game which would seal Ron Zook’s fate. 

This, in turn, meant we got Urban Meyer. And now Florida is in their second BCS National Championship game in 3 years, and has a Heisman Trophy winner in between. 

Things are certainly brighter for the Gator Nation, but the question remains: would Florida be better off if Bob Stoops had taken the head coaching job before Ron Zook was even offered it?

This question, obviously, is extremely hypothetical, and open to great debate. I already stated, previously, that I think Urban Meyer and Nick Saban are #1 and 1a when it comes to the "best coach in America" debate.

I’m not sure where, exactly, Bobby Stoops comes in, but he’s way up my list. He’s won six Big XII conference titles in his 10 years at Oklahoma, and is in his fourth national title game (he won the first, in 2000). 

He’s also coached two Heisman winners (however wrong it may be, Sam Bradford did win this past Saturday). And I’ve seen his house he has next door to Steve Spurrier’s in Crescent Beach. In other words, he’d be a fantastic choice if he were chosen at Florida in 2002.

Lastly, I’ve heard Jenni Carlson (yeah, the one that made Mike Gundy proclaim his age to the world) say Stoops was a candidate in 2004. 

I was on the record of wanting Zook’s replacement to be: 1) Spurrier 2) Spurrier 3) Stoops. And that was the whole list. I distinctly remember, at the time, wanting Stoops to be a candidate again, and it not even coming up anywhere. 

So I’m going to say he wasn’t a candidate anywhere except in my dreams. If you’re noticing a name absent from that list, I did not want new President Bernie Machen to bring over his football coach from Utah, I disliked (and still dislike) Bernie and was questioning what he knew about football coaches, and very pissed at him for suggesting Steve Spurrier "interview for the job."

Let’s just say I’ve reversed opinion on Urban, though I still think the Spurrier thing was bad. If you want to know the deranged thoughts of a Spurrier follower two years into the Urban Meyer era, check this out.

So this brings me to Urban Meyer. I am now thrilled to have him. And not just because he is a Jimmy Buffett fan. As I said before, he’s got us our second SEC title (and second BCS Championship appearance) in three years. 

He’s coached a Heisman winner (could be two-time winner, should have had a shot at a three-time winner). He is morphing into Bill Belichick, who I also admire greatly. 

He’s showing no signs of complacency, bringing in top recruits and making them toe the line, toughen up-even forcing these highly rated, speedy WRs to block or redshirt. He’s emphasizing special teams. 

He doesn’t comb his hair on game days. I know some of the words to the fight song, when I didn’t even know it had words before. He embraces the new offenses, but stresses old-school toughness and fundamentals. 

A lot of my arguments for him as a great coach were in the Meyer vs. Saban piece, but a lot of it centers around the fact that he’s come in with a new system and won, quickly, everywhere he’s gone.

All of this is still just fodder for the big question: would we be better off if Bob Stoops had taken the head coaching job in 2002, before we had a chance to get Zooked? I say the answer is "no."

Sure, the selfish part of me, the side that remembers I moved to Texas after the 2005 season, would want those more successful season while I still had student tickets. But I contend we are set up for the future as well as we could possibly be set up. 

Our "down year" existed because, during most coaching changes, Year 3 is the hardest year. That missing recruiting class is supposed to be a large part of upperclassmen, and usually there aren’t many seniors because the good ones were someone else’s recruits who jumped to the NFL after Year 2 success. 

It happened to Spurrier at Florida, and numerous other places. But now, we are a recruiting juggernaut. Sure, USC handpicks everyone west of Texas, but somehow we are bringing in the same level talent, with huge in-state rivals and the entire SEC and ACC raiding our backyard, before you even consider upstarts USF, UCF, and the fact Rutgers is starting to grab a few. 

Almost no matter what happens in the next eight months, we will be favored to win the East and go to Atlanta again next year. Our entire defense does not have a single senior starter.

Not only does Urban bring in the talent, but he works to bring out the best in it- he salvaged Jarvis Moss from his unknown illness, and brings guys like Louis Murphy and David Nelson from out of nowhere their sophomore years. 

He gets the impact freshmen, too. He gets the five star guys to come in and work on punt coverage. We are practically guaranteed to have a Heisman finalist again next season, and I wouldn’t rule out the Trophy returning to Gainesville.

This sort of success is not supposed to happen in today’s SEC (though, looking down the road, special thanks to Auburn and Tennessee for their coaching hires). But my favorite part about Urban is that he seems to really get his team to buy into what he is saying. 

They have been incredibly focused and driven down the stretch, when every week someone said they’d have a let down game. His record in rivalry games, games after byes, and bowl games is astounding.

I am not trying to detract from Bob Stoops, as I like him, but you never know exactly how things are going to turn out. 

Things for Gator fans, today, are fantastic, and any change from the past could disrupt that. Maybe we’d be the ones with the recent Ohio State-like BCS bowl record. Or maybe he’d have us on the same roll. 

But there is almost no way Stoops could be an improvement, so I’ll take the current success over anything else. Quite simply, I cannot imagine anything greater than what the present seems to hold, and the future appears to hold, and for that I would not trade anything in the world. 

Not even the road trip to see our boys upset by a team that lost to Maine. Turns out, that loss could be the best thing to happen to our program for my entire undergraduate career.

Any thoughts?

You can find the original article here.