Stoops interview on FSSW

[Salt City Sooner]

http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/05/10/11/Bob-Stoops-discusses-upcoming-season/landing_big12.html?blockID=520199&feedID=4519

[agoo758]

You've posted some good stuff today. Keep up the work my man. :)

[PSK2080]

Bob seems to always have the right answer...he rarely says something that he will regret later...

[goingoneight]

A whole lotta Stoops-talk. :D

Still more interesting than the off-season. :D

[SoonerofAlabama]

You've posted some good stuff today. Keep up the work my man. :)

I agree. Good read. He doesn't have to be a flashy guy that says we are going to win it all. I liked the part about Tony Jefferson's Boomer Sooner song.

[The Maestro]

I love Stoops as the face of OU football and our coach and what he does to lead the program.

Having said that, his interviews are usually about as exciting as Paul Tsongas talking about his economic ideals way back when.

[sendbaht]

Nice to hear...Thanks for posting this.

[w0lfe]

Can someone quote it for us people at work

[soonerloyal]

Bob Stoops Discusses Upcoming Season

FS SOUTHWEST STAFF

May 10, 2011


With his team likely heading into the season as the top ranked team in the country, Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops has huge expectations to fill in Norman.

Stoops sat down with FOX Sports Southwest and discussed his team’s success at the end of last season, replacing key players who left for the NFL and just what it will take for his team to reach the lofty aspirations being set for the Sooner program.

Talk about the way your season ended with the Fiesta Bowl win. Were you pleased with how last year went?

Sure. I think any time you’re the Big 12 champion as well, it’s exciting. It’s special. You’re in a game with your arch-rival; there’s a long history with Nebraska. So to win that game was really great. And to go on and also win the Fiesta Bowl to finish it is a special year. But to me, the two of them go together. At the end of the day, it was really exciting. Then you have your other rival before the championship game, which was Oklahoma State. So you put the three of them together, and it is exciting to finish that way in games that you had to have.

What was your reaction on hearing that both Travis Lewis and Ryan Broyles would be returning for their senior seasons?

Maybe I’m not like the fan out there. I want what’s best for my guys, and if coming back is what they feel is best for them, great. If it isn’t, we’re going to be okay. At the end of the day, I’ve never been in that position like, ‘We have to have somebody back.’ At the end, this is a big program with a lot of people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited that they’re back. They’re great players, they’re great team leaders. But I just don’t look at it that way, like ‘Oh geez, good for us that they’re back.’ Good for them, good for us, and they’re great leaders on our team and they’ll make a difference.


Did you feel like Ryan in particular was ready for the NFL?

I think both guys were ready, to a degree. I think the whole art of coming back should be to improve your status in the draft, and both of them can do that. There are a lot of parts to physical testing that go into where guys are picked, and physical maturity. Those kinds of things all go into it. And these guys have worked hard, and if they continue to do that, they can improve themselves in a lot of different ways. I feel like they’re working toward that.


You lose DeMarco Murray this year. How do you replace his production?

Replacing DeMarco really takes a couple of guys. DeMarco had the big, physical, strong presence to run the ball. He’s a great receiver out of the backfield. He’s a great pass protector to step up and pick up blitzes. He did so many things well and had that great experience. Taking care of the football was one of the best things he did. So you really don’t just replace him. We have a couple of guys — two, three guys — that are in the mix to do all the things he did. We’ll have a couple of guys that give you a different change of pace in the way their running styles are, and hopefully they can be as productive or close [to it].


The Big 12 has undergone serious changes this past year with a nine-game round-robin schedule and no championship game. Do you like the changes? Do you believe the conference is done changing?

Well, I don’t know that any league is ever finished changing. That was obvious last year with what all has happened. So what comes next, and at whatever time, we’ll see. I do like it right now, playing everybody. We have always traditionally played a difficult non-conference schedule. So this schedule will appear like many of ours have looked. On top of playing all the teams that we are , we go to Florida State. So at the end of the day, I think it will be good to play everybody in the league. It’s different for a change that we don’t have a championship game.


[I]You’ve had a few injuries, most recently to tackle Jarvis Jones. Have you seen more players injured than usual this spring?

I wouldn’t say more than usual. We’ve only had the one major one to our tackle Jarvis Jones, and outside of that, we’ve had several guys that were being re-tuned after the season that weren’t able to participate. So we have a few guys out, but overall I think we’re in pretty good shape.


Quarterback Landry Jones is entering his third season as a starter. Can you tell us how you’ve seen him grow, not only as a football player but as a leader?

As you would expect from a bright guy who’s really competitive and has a lot of talent, he just continues to emerge as a great leader. He did that all throughout the year last year, but he’s gained strength and size here in the offseason by his hard work. So he’s a great example of our players, and fits the mold of the great quarterbacks we’ve had through here. He’s another one of them, and he proved that a year ago with the three games on the road to end the season. To play as well as he did, and to be champions again, is a big part of how he played. So he continues to do that. He’s a great leader, a great worker, and you would expect that now being in his fourth year. He’s a junior on the field. He has a chance to be special.


With the experience and talent you have returning this year, can this team compete for the national title?

We’ll see. There’s too much work still that needs to be done, and hopefully some good fortune in keeping players healthy. But it has the makings of being a special team. If you look, whenever we finished a year ago, we didn’t have that many seniors that we actually lost. So if some of these other guys that have played can improve — which they should — and then you get some young guys to replace the ones that have left, we have a chance to be one of the better teams. But there’s a lot of work still to be done to do that.


Your staff has been able to sign several players from California. Would you say you have established a ‘pipeline’ there?

We’ve got several guys from California that have come out here and have started and played really well. We hope and expect it to continue. They’re exciting players. They’ve made a huge impact in just one year as freshmen. So we’ll be out there recruiting more, that’s for sure.


Is it exciting for you that your recruiting base has extended that far across the country?

It is. We’ve had success in Florida at different times with different players, too. We’ve always been ‘national’ maybe to more of a degree than other schools, and the guys that have come from distances like that have had great careers here. So hopefully it will continue.


Offensive coordinator Josh Heupel called plays for the first time in the Fiesta Bowl victory over Connecticut. How do you feel like he performed?

I thought he did an excellent job, but with Jay Norvell, also a co-offensive coordinator, and the other offensive staff putting the plays together leading up to the game in certain situations — here’s what we want to go to: if they’re giving us this, let’s go to that. I thought they did a great job together of putting a plan together, and I thought through the game it went very smoothly. I thought Josh, the way he called plays in anticipation of situations, did an excellent job, and I expect it only to get better.


Was there anything that you really wanted to improve on this spring?

Sure, everything. I didn’t feel at times that we played as good at run defense in a couple of games that hurt us. In some of the games that we didn’t fare well, we didn’t run the ball as consistently as we need to. So those areas always need improvement. Special teams, the games where we got hurt, we had a couple returns against us. So sure, everything needs to . Those are areas you’re always working on improving. And to me, just overall, trying to be more physical. I think when you look at running the ball and stopping the run, it all begins there. So we’re emphasizing it and working it, and hopefully it will keep improving.


[I]We always have to ask you about Texas. Your team had a very successful season, while the Longhorns did not. Was watching Texas struggle sort of a warning sign that a subpar season can happen to any team?

I didn’t need to see them do it to know that that can always happen. I’m not much on speaking about anybody else. Our players are focused on everything we can do here to keep improving, and hopefully we’ll keep doing it and come back next year with another championship year.


Do you welcome the pressure of games like Texas and other big contests on your schedule?

You have to here. Fortunately through the years, we’ve been in a lot of Big 12 Championship games. We play Texas every year, we play our rival Oklahoma State every year. We played last year to see who was in the Big 12 Championship. Three years ago we played Missouri, who was number one in the country, for the Big 12 Championship that year. So that’s pretty regular here, and we do like it. Players look forward to the excitement and the challenges of those games, and they’re always exciting. It’s always special to be in those types of games.


Do you feel like your team should be the favorite to win the Big 12 title this year?

I don’t much care whether we’re favored or not. I just hope our players will do the work, us as coaches will do the work and push ourselves and keep the focus that will give us a chance to be that as we earn it through the fall.


Have you seen the rap video that safety Tony Jefferson posted on YouTube? What do you think of his talents as an artist?

I did hear it one day coming in. As soon as I saw him the day I heard it, I was in my car and pulled him over to the side and complimented him on the great job he did. I said, "He’s got a future outside of football. He can do well.” I was proud he didn’t have any obscene language in it or anything that was inappropriate. I was proud that it sounded like anybody could listen to it.


Would you agree that the California kids are a little different from the rest of the team personality-wise?

I don’t know about that. When you’re around 115 young men every day, they all have interesting personalities. But that’s also what is fun about seeing them every day.


Have you learned any new words or phrases from them?

I learn a few new words every day. I’m always being educated. Again, that’s the fun part of going to practice and seeing them every day.

[Sam.England]

Pretty much says all the right things at the right times!!

Always a class act, never the clown!

[Lawton4Life]

He called OSU our rival at least twice, Pokes are going to be feelin high on the hog today

[Sooner_Tuf]

Always a class act, never the clown!

A position made famous by, Mack Brown!

[swardboy]

A position made famous by, Mack Brown!

That clappy clown of renown.

[MyT Oklahoma]

Thanks for sharing.

[Widescreen]

He only said "at the end of the day" 3 times. He's slipping.

:)

[Mississippi Sooner]

But did he do the interview in a great way?