Bob Stoops retires after 18 seasons
- Thread starter pepsicock
- Start date
He had peaked long ago. Great situation for Lincoln Riley. Seamless transition.
The next rumor up is that he retired to take over our baseball job....lol.
Well just speaking for myself, I was surprised by Stoops stepping down. It would appear for all intents and purposes that Lincoln Riley is a interim coach despite what the OU admin is publicly announcing
This is kind of an odd time of year for a college football coach to be retiring, isn't it?
I'm in the "Love Spurrier" camp, but I think after a 2-4 start to a season is a MUCH odder time to retire.
OU get's a free auditions of Lincoln Riley without signing a big contract...
Yep, battle between Lincoln Riley and Steve Spurrier Jr.. OU will suck this year..
Lincoln Riley is thought to be a good coach and natural successor to Stoops. He is just a bit young to take that on. he was already making $1.3 million as an assistant. Presumably he gets a raise from that to be HC.
There is a lot of talk on message boards, but it is mostly people regurgitating the same rumors that you heard several years ago. No one really knows, but he clearly likes that job. I doubt he has any specific plans, but I could see him laying out a while, then if that job opened up, we know he likes it maybe at that point he wants back in. Maybe not.
Buying a 2.5 million dollar house outside of Chicago tends to add credence to the ND rumor.
On the Lincoln Riley issue, he was mentioned as a possible HC for us before the Boom hire.
I believe he will be at Okla. for a long, long time!
I still remember when Oklahoma hired Bob Stoops for the head coach job. At the time, the Sooners were a dumpster fire sinking to new lows (e.g. 3 straight losing seasons) that their fan base was appalled of. Stoops' first season was okay in winning 7 games but losing their bowl game. Come to think of it, the Oklahoma situation then was similar to ours i.e. the state of the program when Muschamp was hired and the performance of his first season. In Stoops second season, the Sooners won the national championship and the rest is elite success history. Let's not forget Stoops defeated Alabama & Auburn in bowl games but got whipped by Clemson in 2 bowl games too!
Riley needs to win to do that. Someone did a chart of coaches that succeed other coaches who have won a national championship and it wasn't pretty. Very hard to immediately follow a successful coach.
Riley has brought a lot of youthful enthusiasm to OU. The Stoops staff had become a bit complacent and Stoops was thought to be a bit tired. So that is a bright spot for OU fans. However, Riley likely won't be allowed the "down year" or "honeymoon" that most new head coaches get. In that view he is more an interim coach on a try out than the definitely decided new coach. We will see. I personally think he will do well, but know some OU fans who won't have much patience if he doesn't start off winning immediately
Sounds lock step with what folks said about Holbrook here after Ray retired- "a seamless transition, great opportunity..". Many people even said he was like a Ray Tanner clone!
Just sayin... doesn't mean Riley will not be successful there just an observation.
Just because it blew up on us doesn't mean it will blow up on them, even though this could be another Kingsbury scenario, which would not satisfy OU people.
When changes come that appear to be natural progressions, it's human nature to entertain optimism. Why not? At least people who have worked at the same place know the landscape. What will be and there are never any guarantees. Nothing is fool-proof, but this one looks logical at least.
