The Football Brainiacs

Image via Dallas News

Bob Stoops has accomplished a hell of a lot as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma. He will be regarded, by some, as the most successful head coach in the history of a program with one of college football’s most illustrious histories.

He is also, however, coming off the worst — or at least most disappointing — season of his tenure in Norman.

The need for change is no longer disputable. This was evident well before Saturday night’s complete collapse in Bedlam to one of the worst Oklahoma State teams in recent memory. But prior to said implosion, there were many who were very quick to point to Bob Stoops’ past accomplishments in order to excuse the present failures. Or if failures is to harsh a term for you, call it disappointments. Whatever your terminology, the simple fact of the matter is the standards for OU football, standards Stoops coached/recruited his ass off to help re-establish, are no longer being met.

These are the facts, or at least the facts as I see them.

* OU has not played for and/or been a legitimate contender for a national championship since 2008.

* In the six years since that 2008 MNC appearance, OU has averaged three losses per season. You can take that back a full decade to 2004, when OU played USC in the title game. In the ten years since that MNC appearance, OU has, again, averaged three losses per season. This isn’t a fluke year or two, this is a trend. And a disturbing one.

* This staff looks to have been coaching games not to lose rather than coaching to win. Admittedly, that’s purely an opinion of mine but I’d love to hear anyone argue against it. You need look no further than last night and the botched punt decision. If Bob had any confidence in this defense, he never would have chose to re-punt that ball. But he doesn’t and instead felt the “reward” or running another seven or eight seconds off the clock was worth the risk of what we now know took place.

And there are any other number of examples of them coaching simply not to lose a game. Look at how they handled Trevor Knight all season long. I could go on, but I feel think you get the point.

* TFB’s loyal readers and those of us who follow recruiting are aware things have been progressively getting worse for several years now. There are some out there who would have you believe otherwise, but they have paying subscribers to cater to who don’t want to pay for bad news. Things haven’t fallen off catastrophically so mind you, more so just a little bit worse with each successive year, for the most part. And now you’re seeing the results of that on the field where it sure looks to me like OU is lacking for talent at a number of positions.

And recruiting isn’t something you can fix overnight. There’s no magic cure for what may or may not appeal to an 18-year old. Winning certainly helps. Playing for national titles seems to be working for Alabama and Florida State.

The gist of what I’m saying is that right now, recruiting is a problem. OU isn’t getting the elite athletes they used to get, or at least not with nearly the same frequency.

* The other really disturbing trend, related to the previous point on recruiting, is the OU coaches don’t appear to be developing talent like they’ve done in the past. Be it at quarterback, receiver, defensive back, linebacker, etc. Back in the day you’d be cool with taking a three-star kid because you knew the coaches would develop him into a better player. That’s not really happening any more.

* Coaches don’t stick in one place as long as Bob has been in Norman. So when I say no coach has been in one place as long as he has, allowed to program to slip, then recaptured the magic and started playing for and/or winning national championships isn’t entirely accurate but only in the time with respect to his tenure.

I cannot definitively state it’s never happened, because I’m not going to spend my Sunday afternoon Googling the history of CFB head coaches, but at a minimum I feel pretty confident it’s rare for a coach who appears to have lost it suddenly get it back. Bobby Bowden didn’t do it. Joe Paterno didn’t do it. Mack Brown didn’t do it. I’m sure many of you are much smarter than myself, so I suspect you’ll able to come up with an example or two, but as I said before, even if you find one it’s bound to be the exception rather than the rule.

* Somewhat related, I can’t even begin to describe to you how much I’ve come to despise the Stoops apologists who are so quick to say “Be careful what you wish for. If you get rid of Stoops, you’ll be welcoming back the days of John Blake!”

So let me get this straight. The only possible scenario, in your mind, if Stoops is no longer the head coach at OU is what happened in the 90s? Um, yeah, okay.

Is it possible whoever eventually replaces Stoops isn’t successful? Of course it’s possible. But these people act like it’s a g.d certainty. But I’m the negative one. Oh, and speaking of Blake.

Sooners finish with a 3-3 Home Recd this season, first time to lose 3 at home since John Blakes' second year in 1997

— Mike Brooks (@MBrooks02) December 7, 2014

I’ve reached that breaking point. I don’t know if any of you reading this feel the same or not. I’m not trying to speak for or on behalf of you. I’m simply expressing how I feel. If that makes me an irrational, moronic fan in the minds of some, so be it.

All that said, I/you/we all know Bob Stoops isn’t getting fired. I’m not suggesting otherwise. I am, however, suggesting if he’s not willing to make the necessary changes then, yes, he needs to go.

So what are those changes?

* Josh Heupel has to go. It has been abundantly clear for some time that he never should have been given in the job in the first place. The University of Oklahoma is not a place where you learn on the job.

I’m more than willing to concede he’s had his moments, but he’s so inconsistent in his ability to call a game. He doesn’t seem to have any kind of feel for what to call when. And he has a tendency to be either (1) so predictable (see almost every short-yardage situation in recent memory) or (2) creative with his play-calls much too late into the game and/or season (see Saturday night, ‘where was that jet sweep to Ross all year?’ would be just one of many questions I’d have for Josh).

This offense has no identity and never really has under his guidance. He’s pretty clearly a guy who wants to throw the ball a majority of the time, but they don’t have any quarterbacks on campus who are capable of running that style of offense. So he’s reluctantly (my word) running a system he doesn’t really want to run which, in my opinion, is pretty hard to argue against based on what we’ve seen on the field and a refusal to fully commit to a ‘zone-read’ style of quarterback/offense.

* Mike Stoops has to go. Look, we all wanted it to work when he came back. We wanted to recreate that magic, looked like it might even happen for a little bit, but it’s clearly not working.

It’s not my place to determine whether or not the game has passed him by. But based on what we’ve seen from his defense his year and perhaps more importantly so, his utter exasperation in postgame interviews where certainly gives — at least to this OU fan — a strong indication he’s lost right now as to how to defend Big 12 offenses.

* Tim Kish has to go. Never should have been hired in the first place. This was your prototypical Stoops hiring of a friend, in this case Mike’s, that has failed in the past and done so again here. All we heard when he was hired was about how great a recruiter he was/is, the results do not back this up. And now the LB position is arguably the thinnest and most lacking in talent on the entire team. Unacceptable.

* Bobby Jack Wright has to go. This one has been coming for a while. He needs to be put in the admin job that he’s been rumored to take for years. Cornerback play has fallen off a cliff and while I’m sure he still has more than his share of connections in Texas, his days as a truly dynamic recruiter are no more (in my opinion).

* Jay Boulware has to go. Whether through his own doing or with the help of Heupel, the tight end position at OU belongs on a milk carton. An injured Sterling Shepard checking himself into a game, in horrible conditions, only to re-aggravate said injury. Or the decision to punt to Tyreek Hill on Saturday night. Add to that the complete and inexcusable abandonment of returning punts, which for pretty much every other team in the country is an opportunity to make a positive play. And, why? Because Shepard got hurt? You mean to tell me out of your 85 (or so) scholarship players, there’s literally just a single one who you feel comfortable enough putting back there only to be told to just fair catch it?

* Jay Norvell may need to go. I hedge here which you’re welcome to call me out on should you see fit. He has a stellar track record of bringing in talent at the wide receiver position, but the further development of said talent has come into question. No more so than this current season as OU has become completely reliant on a single player (Shepard). How could you allow it to get to this point? That’s a problem.

And I’m not in those meeting rooms so I can’t say how much of the blame he should share, given his co-offensive coordinator title, that most place on Heupel, but given the inconsistency of the offense this season that title isn’t helping his case.

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So there you go. That’s where I’m at after this 2014 season. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can’t. All I know is something has to change. I’m not sure how anyone, and includes Bob, could argue otherwise at this point.

He went against type and made the necessary call to shake up his staff just a couple years ago and now more change is needed. Knowing what we’d like to believe we know about Bob and his sense of loyalty, those were not easy changes to make. These, however, will be even more difficult. And if he’s not willing to make them this time around then maybe, just maybe, he’s the change that needs to be made.