Looks like Ox could be right! From ESPN insider:
Oklahoma should have a new coach in 2015. No, Bob Stoops is not getting fired. He sports a 166-42 career record and has never had a losing season.
However, Stoops should strongly consider leaving on his own volition to shake things up. It would be of benefit to his career, to Oklahoma -- and to his next school.
If jobs at Florida and Michigan do open, both would have Stoops high on their wish lists. And the feeling should be mutual.
Let’s face the facts: Oklahoma has gotten stagnant.
“It happens. He should move on,†one coach told me Saturday. “Ten years is the max, I would say.â€
If the staleness wasn’t clear, Saturday’s 48-14 loss to Baylor drove home the point.
After winning 75 of his first 77 games at Owen Field, Stoops is 14-5 there since then.
“That was a tough place to play,†one coach told me Saturday night.
Yeah -- was.
Even in their previous six home defeats, Stoops' Sooners had not been embarrassed like this. OU fans lustily booed the team’s soft defense early in the second half on Saturday. And that’s before the game really went sideways.
The Sooners lost by 34; Stoops’ first six home losses came by a combined 36 points.
Put it this way: There’s a growing number of OU fans who would help load Stoops’ moving van if the day came. Too many years of promise have gone unfulfilled, and too many years have passed since the Sooners' 2000 BCS title.
“I think it’s very real,†one coach said when I asked him generally about OU's staleness. “Fans get spoiled. A lot of coaches move on to keep it new, keep energy high. Look at Urban [Meyer].â€
Maybe it was just a contract leverage play, which worked, but I believed some coaches when they told me Stoops had genuine interest last winter in the Cleveland Browns job.
“I think he’s looking for other options,†a coach said Saturday.
When the topic of disappointment came up this summer, Stoops focused on the 2009 season, in which a number of players -- including Heisman-winning QB Sam Bradford -- dealt with injuries.
That’s fine -- totally fair. But he didn’t have any explanation for OU's three-loss season in 2011, and this year's team -- widely considered a contender for a playoff spot -- now has three losses, including two consecutive home defeats.
Baylor, a program moving in the opposite direction, has now beaten OU in three of the past four meetings; it was 0-20 in the series prior to 2011.
Do you need more evidence than that to prove that things have changed in the Big 12? This is no longer a league run by OU and Texas. The changing of the guard came en masse, with Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and now TCU ushering UT and OU to the periphery.
Things had gotten similarly stale in Austin, and Texas made a change.
Stoops is not on any sort of hot seat -- yet. But he is trending in that direction. So now’s the time for Stoops to make the change himself.
The school loves to boast how long the president, AD and coach have been together, and rightfully so. But all good runs come to an end. Might as well transition with some grace.
