Stoops bowl record is now 8-9, it is a legitimate criticism of his tenure because of the way alot of those losses occurred. Nayionally in years to come and we are on the bubble of making the playoffs, these ongoing post season implosions will way heavily in voter's minds.
The game wasn't pretty, but we were up at the half. Spooky calls aren't fun and they changed the game, but being down to your 4th string RB when that was such a big part of the game? Bob can't fix that. Only Mr. Miagi can
When you are playing in BCS and championship/playoff games, your competition is going to be better We were lucky to be where we were thus year I sure like Shep's story better if he wins this one though. Was still a fun year.
We overachieved this year ... I thought we'd be in this position next year oh well every team in the playoff had more talent than us .. us and msu were about even. Its about recruiting.
My take is that Stoops doesn't do well with that much time off. I don't know if he and his staff switch to vacation mode or what, but it's usually a different team that shows up at the bowl game. Clearly no real adjustments happened on our side at halftime.
Stoops got out-schemed badly. Dabo is a riverboat gambler and it is obvious hiscoaching staff takes their cues from him. He gambled his QB wouldn't get hurt and he used the 3 weeks between theregular season and this game to tweak and adjust their running game. Mike Stoops never adjusted. He never stacked the line while Venables did and dared Riley to abandon the running game and long pass game. Riley will learnand get better. Mike Stoops won't. It appears Clemson's coaching staff studied the Texas game film a lot. Stoops should have anticipated this.
Agree with Okie35. We caught Baylor without their star QB, and eked out a 1 pt victory over a decimated TCU team. OU was fortuate to get this far, but they did what it takes. The heart/soul , swagger and committment of this team was commendable. I think Stoops was sincere when he compared them to his 2000 NC bunch, but they're just not quite there yet. OU has a very, very good football team, but Clemson has an excellent all around team, and Bama appears to have the platinum model again. we'll see.
Skip Bayless @RealSkipBayless Bob Stoops, worst big-game motivator in college football, sent out a defense tonight that wasn't ready to match Clemson's intensity.
Two knocks I have on the Stoops dynasty. First it seems as if they are unable to get the little things right namely special teams and penalties. The other is what I call the "Mike Tyson Syndrome", they are bad ***, smack talking swagger junkies when they are throwing their best stuff at the opponent but as soon as they get punched in the face the crumple like a cheap suit.
SoonerBorn makes a good point...I'd really rather see two weeks or less between the end of the season and the post season bowl. When Stoops has his teams on a roll (like the last seven games of this season) the swagger is more pronounced and the outcomes are more enjoyable and predictable. This time around all the talking heads had it that OU is the most balanced team in all three phases, yada yada and, frankly, I think the team heard it enough that it affected their play. Just my opinion, doncha know?
But in this case, he was on point. Stoops has more than a monkey on his back now, if we are a 1-loss conference champ next year.......the CFP commitee will leave us on the outside.
Stoops didn't have the un-sportsmanship penalty, or threw the interceptions, or didn't block the sacks on the QB. OU looked like they had practiced TOO hard, and was already tired. They really missed Charles Walker, who got a concussion during practice. Obviously Perine's ankle injury never healed before this game..... Clemson looked BIG, and they were faster than I thought they would be. Maybe OU gave up too soon on the Defensive Coordinator.....and settled for the wrong one, brother or no.
If we finish next year with 1 loss, chances are we'll be number 1 going into the playoffs. Look at the schedule.
Perspective in this thread is a joke. I'm the farthest thing from a pumper as I thought we might go .500 after the Texas game. We end up with a Big 12 title and a trip to the CFP and we b*tch about Bob's short comings? Am I upset we lost? Yeah, almost lost my voice watching the game, but at the end of the day....damn impressive season and I give it up to them and one of Bob's best coaching years. Boomer!
I will agree that after Texas I'd have said this would have been an impressive run. Now back to your perspective, don't forget context and we played TCU with a 3rd string QB and Baylor/OSU with a backup.
This was one of Stoops' finer years. The fact that we were within 6 quarters of #8 with this team is nothing short of miraculous. We've had WAY more talented teams. It doesn't sound like we'll have any first rounders, and we may not even have any second rounders. I can't really think of a reason not be optimistic about next year at this point.
Baylor's backup was a stud, and OSU's QB had started plenty of games. Both on the road as well, so they were still impressive.
You know I'm doom and gloom. You keep hearing Stoops talk about we practice this and we practice that. You'll here, we talked about discipline. The problem seems to be in the heat of it, none of that seems to work. It seems like they need either smarter players or players with better attitudes. I can't say enough about the presence and class of guys like Darlington and Striker but then you have Baker, a Heisman snub, barking at Clemson players pregame and then going out and playing poorly.
