Texas Football: 5 Reasons Mack Brown Is a Better Coach Than Bob Stoops
The Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma has blossomed into one of the more classic and exciting clashes in college football that shares ranks with Michigan-Ohio State, USC-Notre Dame, Army-Navy and the like.
Since Mack Brown secured the reins in Austin in 1998, and Bob Stoops in Norman in 1999, the two coaches have reconstructed programs that have banged heads viciously over their tenures.
But when all the dust has settled, only one of the two emerges as top dog.
Here are five reasons Mack Brown is a better coach than Bob Stoops.
Better Recruiter
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In the last 10 years, Mack Brown has consistently pulled in better recruiting class than Bob Stoops per Rivals.com.
Texas has only three non-top-ten classes since 2002 to Oklahoma's four. Additionally, the Horns have averaged a sixth-ranked recruiting class over that span. The Sooners, 10th.
Of course how those classes develop into championship-caliber teams is a completely different story. But on a very basic level of a college football program, Brown is winning out, especially after Texas' BCS Championship in 2005.
BCS Record
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One measurable of a team's success in a given year is bowl season.
Since the inception of the BCS in 1998, Mack Brown has appeared in four of those matchups, two of which were for National Championship bragging rights, to a tune of 3-1.
While Bob Stoops has put his team in position more than his rival south of the Red River, his Sooners have gone 3-5 in BCS games.
Depending on how one would like to measure, appearances mean little if there is no victory to attach.
Whether it is a product of how good a team really is, coaching still matters. And when the big game in national spotlight calls, Brown has the edge.
Better in Bowl Season
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Stoops has plenty of bowl game experiences, clinching a postseason berth in each of his 12 seasons at the helm of the Oklahoma program. But his lackluster 6-6 record (dropping five of the last eight appearances) seems mediocre when it counts.
Brown, on the other hand, produced poor results early in his Texas career, but has put together a great deal of success more recently.
In 12 bowl appearances in his 13 years in Austin, Brown has amassed an 8-4 record. Overall, Brown has led his programs (Tulane, North Carolina, Texas) to 18 bowl games with an 11-7 mark.
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NFL Factory
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According to ESPN.com, Texas currently has 49 of its alum listed on NFL rosters. Oklahoma respectably has 40.
Although 100 percent of those players may not have come during the Mack Brown and Bob Stoops' era of coaching, it is pretty darn close.
Texas does have the edge in NFL products, and though it may be a result of better assistants, guidance of the overall program will come from the one man in charge.
Better Politician
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Whatever the characteristics of the world's best coach, he cannot be as successful without the qualities of a good politician, one who can say the right things to the right people at the right times.
Aside from the Xs and Os and the chalk talk, a smooth coach can win over the constituents and those who retain the highest interest in a program's success.
And while both Brown and Stoops have already developed into legendary coaches at Texas and Oklahoma respectively, there is hardly a better politician than the former, at least in the public eye.
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