By Clay Horning CNHI The Muskogee Phoenix Fri Dec 24, 2010, 04:18 PM CST
You can tire of Bob Stoops’ unwillingness to view reality.
In the form of defending a senseless two-point conversion try, or of his refusal to acknowledge some very real road problems the Sooners finally appeared to solve at Baylor, Oklahoma State and the Big 12 title game, he can try a very calm person’s patience.
What you can’t do, however, is not be impressed by the body of work. The incredible consistency, despite bumps in the road, of his 12-season tenure, one that has produced four BCS championship game appearances, four more BCS bowl appearances, including the 2011 Fiesta, coming up against Connecticut and, most of all, seven Big 12 championships.
Kenny Mossman, who runs media relations for Sooner athletics, occasionally turns sports writer for his Mossman Prophecies at SoonerSports.com, He put OU’s conference title prowess in context this week, explaining that no program has won more league championships than the Sooners’ seven over the last 11 seasons.
Yes, others have won exactly seven — Ohio State and Southern Cal — though neither has had to take the conference title-game route as the Big 10 and Pac-10, up to this point, have scheduled no such game. Thus, the Buckeyes and Trojans have shared several of their titles.
One of the things Mossman’s employed to do is spread Sooner sunshine, but no embellishment is required on this count. Over the last decade and change, no college football program has been better (or, really, as good) in its conference than OU has been in the Big 12.
There may be no better reason as to why, than the continuity of the program Stoops orchestrates. That continuity was underlined yet again when Josh Heupel and Jay Norvell were promoted to offensive co-coordinators 1 and 1A last week.
At first glance, there’s nothing amazing about the ascendance of Heupel and Norvell. Indeed, something very close to exactly what happened was expected, though some figured Norvell to receive play-calling duties.
But step back and look at the history of the offensive coordinator position. Since Stoops arrived, it’s been Mike Leach, followed by Mark Mangino, followed by Chuck Long, followed by Kevin Wilson, followed by Heupel (and Norvell).
Amazing is the fact Stoops has never had to look beyond his existing staff to fill the position.
Not once.
Equally amazing is the fact that, even as the offense has continually evolved, it has never appeared to change dramatically. Never.
Mangino ran the ball more than Leach, but gave defenses no less to prepare for. It wasn’t like all those quirky formations were ditched on a dime.
Long inherited what Mangino left. The personality of the offense might have changed under Long, many thought he called too vanilla a game, yet there was no starting over, only continued success.
The name of the game has always been evolution rather than a new approach, and so it was again under Wilson, who loved to tinker. But that amounted to new wrinkles, rather than changes in philosophy.
“I’ve always structurally built our staff that way. It was intentional from the beginning.” Stoops said. “As long as I believe in the direction we’re going and like the direction, we should not have to make wholesale changes.”
Makes it easier on the players, too.
“They have been built in this program over one, two, three and four years,” Stoops said. “They understand our philosophy and how we do it.”
Also, though it doesn’t make the down years any easier for the Sooner Nation to enjoy, it should at least allow that nation to maintain confidence in the midst of them.In 2005, OU played a freshman quarterback who struggled mightily.
But, eventually, Rhett Bomar figured things out and OU closed strong at the Holiday Bowl.In 2009, a new offensive line and a crush of injuries nobody could have projected made the Sooners pay.
Yet, even that team closed strong, too.What has never happened here in Norman is what happened this season in Austin, where Texas’ offensive coordinator resigned (under fire), two other assistants retired (presumably under fire) and the defensive coordinator, Will Muschamp, even though he’d been promised Mack Brown’s job (eventually), left to succeed Urban Meyer at Florida (while his stock was still high).
Under Stoops, not one assistant has left under fire. Also, Brent Venables, Bobby Jack Wright, Cale Gundy, Jackie Shipp and strength coach Jerry Schmidt have been around for the entirety of the Stoops era.These things just don’t happen. Well, except at OU.
Clay Horning writes for the Norman Transcript.
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