OU football: Stoops talks about his dad
Bob Stoops made reference to his father during his Tuesday press conference. He was just kidding around, talking about why some of college football’s most animated coaches — the Stoopses and Nebraska’s Pelinis — hail from Youngstown, Ohio.
“Have to put it on our high school coaches,” Stoops said. “They were pretty animated. We’ll send it back to my dad and coach (Don) Bucci at Cardinal Mooney.”
Ron Stoops Sr. was Cardinal Mooney’s defensive coordinator for many years. He died virtually on the job, suffering a heart attack near the end of a 1989 game and dying on the way to the hospital. Bucci was the Cardinal Mooney head coach.
But in truth, Ron Stoops Sr. was not as volatile as his sons became.
“My dad wasn’t as animated as we are,” Bob Stoops said. “I don’t know that he had to be.”
I wrote about Stoops’ — and Nebraska’s Bo Pelini’s — demeanor for my Wednesday column, which you can read here: http://newsok.com/ous-bob-stoops-nebraskas-bo-pelini-lighting-fires-the-youngstown-way/article/3519550?custom_click=lead_story_title
Bob Stoops’ theory is that not all the emotions that have boiled out from the Stoopses and the Pelinis is necessarily passion. Some of it is calculated. Sometimes to change a culture, to change a mindset, you need to get people’s attention.
Maybe Ron Stoops Sr. already had the boys of Youngstown’s attention in the 1970s and ’80s. He was quieter than his boys, Bob said.
But don’t get the idea the elder Stoops was not competitive. He still played fast-pitch softball the summer he died, at age 54.
Bo Pelini, Nebraska’s head coach, has in the past talked extensively about the influence Ron Stoops Sr. had on him.
Bob and Mike Stoops are older than Bo and Carl Pelini (NU’s defensive coordinator), but their families grew up together. Bob hired Bo for his OU staff in 2004, and when Carl Pelini came to Kansas State in 1989 as a graduate assistant, he lived with Bob and Carol Stoops for a few months.
“We are very intertwined, very close,” Stoops said. “My wife considers him like a brother. She might be halfway rooting for him.”
There he goes kidding again. No room in a Stoops household for that slack off in competitiveness.
OU football: Good news on Murray
DeMarco Murray’s season of redemption continues. Just like Quentin Griffin’s.
Remember in 2002, when some OU fans clamored for Renaldo Works to play ahead of Griffin? By the end of the season, Griffin’s rushing total stood at 1,864 and he had had forged his way to No. 5 on the all-time OU rushing list.
Same with Griffin. Earlier this season, some wondered why freshman Roy Finch wasn’t playing more at tailback. While few wanted Murray on the bench — move him to the slot, was their cry, which OU has to some degree – the inference was clear. Finch is the better ballcarrier.
In the wake of the realization that OU’s offensive line is just OK by most college football standards and inadequate by Sooner standards, Murray’s worth has been revealed. He runs hard — hard, hard, hard — even when there’s not a lot of running room.
In fact, Murray has become a wonderfully versatile player. A superb receiver when out flanked out or curling out of the backfield, but also a bulldozing tailback who rarely breaks a 40-yarder but gets four yards when there’s only room for two.
Murray is up to 64 career touchdowns. He broke Steve Owens’ school record of 57 career TDs. No way will Murray break the NCAA touchdown record — Miami-Ohio’s Travis Prentice scored 78 touchdowns. Murray would need seven against Nebraska and seven in the bowl game, just to tie.
But Murray is climbing up the ladder of all-time NCAA points scored. He’s got 384, good for seventh all-time among non-kickers. Here’s the top 10:
1. 468: Travis Prentice, Miami of Ohio (1996-99)
2. 452: Ricky Williams, Texas (1995-98)
3. 414: Taurean Henderson, Texas Tech (2002-05)
4. 408: Brock Forsey, Boise State (1999-02)
5. 404: Cedric Benson, Texas (2001-04)
6. 394: Anthony Thompson, Indiana (1986-89)
7. 384: DeMarco Murray, Oklahoma (2007-10)
8. 378: Ron Dayne, Wisconsin (1996-99)
9. 376: Marshall Faulk, San Diego State (1991-93)
10. 374: Eric Crouch, Nebraska (1998-2001)
Pretty good company. Bob Stoops says Murray, who suffered a knee injury against Oklahoma State, appears ready to go against Nebraska on Saturday night in the Big 12 title game. It’s a good thing. The Sooners can always use someone who has scored 64 touchdowns.
OSU football: A ticket solution
Someone with extensive experience in marketing offered up a compromise on the Oklahoma State football ticket situation. Athletic director Mike Holder’s ticket plan — a premium game each season for which no individual-game tickets will be sold — has worked very well in expanding OSU’s season ticket base.
But Holder’s plan leads to empty seats for a game that would be an automatic sellout: the Bedlam game this year, for example. The crowd was 51,164, about 9,000 shy of capacity. That’s an eyesore for such a big game, but one Holder is willing to endure to build the season-ticket base, which has grown by big numbers in recent years.
Here’s the idea: Sell individual game tickets to the premium game, but sell them only to season-ticket holders.
The plan has merit. The game would remain premium, different from the others, which would entice season-ticket holders. Maybe more season-ticket holders. The ability to attend the premium game and perhaps take some extra friends or family, would be attractive. A full house would be virtually assured for a Bedlam or Texas game.
On the other hand, it’s possible such a system could beget loopholes. Some season-ticket holders who were originally enticed by the premium game could figure they could scramble around and get tickets from other season-ticket holders.
Maybe you could cap the individual tickets for sale. One ticket for every two season tickets, something like that.
Holder has shown no signs that he’s interested in a compromise, and you can’t blame him. His plan has worked. OU fans don’t like it, because it keeps many Sooner fans out of Boone Pickens Stadium, but Holder didn’t do it to agitate the Sooners. He did it to build his fan base, and it’s worked.
But if Holder is looking for ways to tinker with his ticket policy, maybe this is worth a look.
Big 12 football: Expand to BYU, Louisville
TCU apparently is headed for the Big East, which makes no geographic sense, but that long ago quit mattering. Tampa, Fort Worth and Syracuse, N.Y. That’s not the Big East. That’s the Big America.
But anyway, TCU’s apparent decision to join the Big East is a clear indication that the Big 12 meant its stated intention to NOT expand with a Texas school. I personally think that if TCU had made the national championship game and won, the Big 12 would have been under intense pressure to invite the Horned Frogs.
Louisville coach Charlie Strong reacts after getting doused by one of his players during the second half of a NCAA college football game against Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J. on Friday, Nov. 26, 2010. Louisville won 40-13. (AP Photo/Tim Larsen)
How could a league with a couple of openings NOT invite a school 20 miles from the conference office that wants to join and has just won a national title? I think the Big 12 might have had to pull that trigger; invite TCU and BYU and hope BYU’s strong television presence would be enough to offset the Frogs’ lack of TV prowess.
All this conference realignment — Big Ten and Pac-10 expansion to 12 teams, allowing for a league championship game; BYU, Utah and TCU fleeing the Mountain West — leaves the Big 12 vulnerable.
I know the Big 12 likes the idea of the same amount of money split among 10 mouths rather than 12, but the conference appears weak falling back to 10 and losing a championship game.
I think, more than ever before, the Big 12 has to get back to a dozen. And I say BYU and Louisville are the way to go.
Louisville has a strong athletic program, and its football program is coming back under first-year coach Charlie Strong. UL has a good fan base, and Louisville would provide a good TV market. It ranks in the 40s, around Oklahoma City.
And BYU is a home run, except for the proximity. It’s 1,000 miles from Kansas City to Provo, Utah. The Cougars play big-time football, despite this season, and are a basketball force, too. BYU has a great TV market (top-50) and even better, a national television presence.
BYU and Louisville are the way to go.
OU football: Aggies on the outside
OU won another BCS three-way tiebreaker, its second in three years, to make the Big 12 championship game. This one wasn’t as close, of course, as 2008, when the Sooners edged Texas. OU checked in at No. 9, Oklahoma State at No. 14 and Texas A&M at No. 18.
Just another example of the BCS loving OU. The BCS favored OU in Solomonic decisions in 2003, 2004 and 2008. Now 2010. The Sooners qualify for the BCS’ most-favored-team status.
The BCS reflects voters’ tendency to rank teams almost exclusively by number of losses. There are only three exceptions to that rule in the BCS top 25: 1. mid-majors (Boise State, Nevada, Utah) are below teams with more losses; 2. Arkansas, 10-2, is one spot above 11-1 Michigan State, for reasons I don’t fully understand; 3. West Virginia, 8-3, is below four-loss teams Arizona and Mississippi State, because the Big East is so bad.
So A&M had little chance to jump OU or OSU. The Aggies are paying for losing to Arkansas, on a neutral field. But before you write this off as a reason to dumb down the schedule, remember the rest of A&M’s non-conference opponents: Stephen F. Austin, Louisiana Tech, Florida International. FIU almost beat the Aggies, but that hasn’t been overly embarrassing, since the Golden Panthers are in contention to win the Sun Belt.
An argument in OU’s favor is that of the three tied teams, the Sooners played both OSU and A&M on the road, while OSU played both at home. That’s a point I made two years ago, explaining why Texas seemed like the best choice among the threesome of UT, OU and Texas Tech.
An argument against the BCS as a tiebreaker is that the polls typically prop up the traditional powers, particularly in the preseason, which makes it more difficult for an OSU or a Texas Tech to win the BCS roulette.
A&M is left with the consolation prize of having beaten both OU and Nebraska, the Big 12 title game participants. That’s a feat Texas accomplished in 2008 (beating OU and Missouri) and 2006 (OU and Nebraska).
Bedlam football: OU defense shines
Crazy at it seems, the best unit on the field Saturday night in OU’s 47-41 Bedlam victory was the Sooner defense. As unbelievable as it seems, the least effective unit was the unit we thought, going into the game, clearly was the best. The OSU offense.
I thought in general, the OU offense played really well, but the three turnovers were huge. Conversely, the OSU defense was victimized, but those three takeaways can’t be discounted. I think we have to say both the Sooner offense and the Cowboy defense did its job. That was a virtual wash, and while OU’s offensive numbers soared with Landry Jones’ late touchdown passes of 86 and 76 yards, you can’t lay those at the feet of the Cowboy defense. You have to just hand it to Jones and the Sooners for a job well done in crunch time.
But the OU defense completely controlled the Cowboy offense. OSU had 15 possessions; it punted seven times and committed three turnovers. The Cowboys had three offensive touchdowns and two field goals. That’s winning defense against an offense like Dana Holgorsen’s.
OSU ran the ball better than did OU — check the tailback numbers. The Cowboys’ trio gained 118 yards on 22 carries, an average of 5.4 yards per carry. The Sooner ballcarriers carried 42 times for 140 yards, an average of 3.3 yards.
Jones completed 59.7 percent of his passes. OSU quarterback Brandon Weeden completed 65.1 percent of his passes. Both threw three interceptions.
Yet the Sooners controlled most of the game by controlling the ball. OU ran 107 plays. That’s astounding. But OU’s 16-of-27 third-down conversion rate was spectacular not for the 16, but for the 27. The Sooners had 27 third-down plays. Think about that for a minute. OU’s conversion rate of 59.2 percent was very good.
But the biggest stat in the game was OSU’s third-down conversion rate: 33.3 percent. Two of OSU’s five third-down conversions came in those crazy final six minutes, when 34 points were scored. So when this was a regular football game and not some kind of video football, the Cowboys made just three of 12 third-down conversions.
The Sooner defense embodied the term “getting off the field.” They got off the field and turned the ball back to their offense, which methodically drove the ball.
Ironically, OU sealed the deal with those two cross-country touchdown passes after a season in which the Sooners had not produced many big plays. But before that crazy finish, OU played station-to-station to football.
OU had four possessions in which it made at least four first downs. OSU fought back by swiping those three Jones passes, keeping the Cowboys in the game.
But while OU’s defense also swiped three passes, it did NOT allow the methodical first downs — or many big plays — that would have turned this into a wild shoot-out.
Bedlam football: Stopping Justin Blackmon & Ryan Broyles
Justin Blackmon vs. Ryan Broyles. That’s largely what Bedlam 2010 comes down to. I can’t remember ever seeing a football game, especially one with such intense interest to the state, in which the primary combatants are wide receivers.
I’m also enough of a football novice to be mystified on how Blackmon and Broyles can keep roaming free every Saturday. The deep balls, I sort of understand. You can’t over-compensate defensively on deep routes. That leaves too much of the field open. And intermediate routes, same thing. But the short routes? The bubble screens and the quick swings and the crossing routes along the line of scrimmage and the five-yard hitches? How do Blackmon and Broyles, who make a lot of yardage after the catch, get so open?
So I asked Bob Stoops, particularly about the bubble screens, which OU uses incessantly with Broyles and OSU uses some with Blackmon, although all the short stuff seems the same to me in futility of a defense to stop it.
“It’s a cat and mouse game everybody’s playing,” Stoops said. ”You can stop it, but now you’re going to be short-handed on the run. You’re kind of picking your poison. Want to stop the run? Then you’re taking your chances on the screen. You’re going to be a little better on the run and a little short-handed on the screen.”
So the short stuff to the superstar receivers is something defenses live with to keep from getting run on. No one has really stopped either, except Texas A&M, which put the kibosh on OU’s sideway passes, and Texas, which overall did a superb job on Broyles overall.
Stoops complimented OSU’s scheme, which has allowed quarterback Brandon Weeden to flourish behind a rebuilt offensive line.
“Not to take anything at all from their offensive line, but they’re really smart at getting the ball out,” Stoops said. “The timing of routes. He gets it out quick. They run more screens than any team you’ll see.
“That’s a lot of it. But their line has been very good and disciplined.”
OSU football: Dr. Lou offers a pep talk
ESPN’s Thursday night halftimes are always entertaining, thanks to Lou Holtz. The old coach’s Dr. Lou segment is always funny and enlightening. Holtz sometimes delivers pep talks for certain players or teams. Thursday night, at halftime of the Texas A&M-Texas game, Holtz delivered a pep talk for the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
Wearing OSU gear in a faux locker room made out to be OSU’s, Holtz delivered the following speech:
“OK men, get a smile on your faces, a song in your heart. These are exciting times. Let me tell you about the man who came home late at night. His wife was upset, complaining. He said, ‘Let me acquaint you with a few facts of life, young lady. Would it behoove you to know I just lost you in a poker game?’ She said, ‘How’d you do that?’ He said ‘It wasn’t easy. I folded with four aces.’
“Winning isn’t going to be easy, beating Oklahoma, but we can and we will. Last year, all we had to do was beat Oklahoma, we go to a BCS bowl. We got beat 29-0. From that football team, we only had two starters coming back on offense and only three on defense. Nobody gave us a chance to win. We’re picked to finish next-to-last in our division.
“We weren’t among the top 45 teams in in the country preseason. Yet all our goals are still alive. We win today, we win our division championship. We win next week, we win the conference championship and we’re still alive for the national championship with a 12-1 record.
“Men, great players make great plays in great games. We have a lot of talent on this football team. You look at our quarterback. Yeah, he’s a little old. Some people think he went to high schol on the GI bill. But that’s not true. But he has thrown for 3,780 yards. You look at Kendall Hunter, one of the best running backs in the entire country, over 1,300 yards already. Justin Blackmon, our receiver, is as good as anybody in the world.
“Yeah, we have talent. We’re favored. That means we help another, we care one another. we encourage one another. Of all the written and things said by man, the saddest words, what could have been.
“Men, when this game’s over, have absolutely no regrets. They say there are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old bold pilots. We don’t worry about being old, but we must be bold today. Go out there and play this game excited.
“I wanted to play the game early in the morning. Why? So we’d have longer to celebrate. Now let’s go whip Oklahoma.”
OU football: OSU tries to pin 3rd loss on Bob Stoops
Bob Stoops lost to Oklahoma State in 2001 and 2002. Such was the novelty of powerhouse Sooner teams losing two straight Bedlams, that before the 2003 Bedlam game, The Oklahoman’s pregame visual was a drawing of Stoops, with orange kryptonite draped around his neck.
Since then, Stoops has lost some of his superman status. But his domination of Bedlam has been absolute. The Sooners have won seven straight in the series, and though all the games in Stillwater have been close, OU has restored order to the rivalry.
Sometimes we forget how one-sided this series has been over the years. OU leads 81-16-7, and here’s how one-sided it has been. If Stoops loses Saturday night, he will become the first Sooner coach to suffer three Bedlam losses.
Here are the Bedlam records of OU coaches.
Stoops 9-2, John Blake 1-2, Howard Schnellenberger 0-1, Gary Gibbs 5-0-1, Barry Switzer 15-1, Chuck Fairbanks 6-0, Jim Mackenzie 0-1, Gomer Jones 1-1, Bud Wilkinson 17-0, Jim Tatum 1-0, Snorter Luster 2-2-1, Tom Stidham 4-0, Biff Jones 2-0, Lewie Hardage 0-2-1, Ad Lindsey 1-2-2, Bennie Owen 16-2-2, Fred Ewing 1-0.
So, who has been the most successful OSU coach in Bedlam? Pappy Waldorf, who went 3-0-2 from 1929-33. I wrote in my Friday Oklahoman column that Waldorf was OSU’s greatest coach ever, and I stand by that. Waldorf was 34-10-7 in five seasons in Stillwater, and Waldorf was a great coach elsewhere.
Waldorf left Stillwater and went to Kansas State, where he coached the Wildcats to a 7-2-1 record and the 1934 Big Six title. Then Waldorf went to Northwestern and coached 12 years, where his record was 49-45-7. Finally, Waldorf coached 10 years at Cal-Berkeley, where he went 67-32-4. That’s 28 seasons overall, with a record of 157-89-18.
Here are the OSU coaching records in Bedlam. Mike Gundy is 0-5. Les Miles was 2-2. Bob Simmons 3-3. Pat Jones 0-10-1. Jimmy Johnson 0-5. Jim Stanley 1-5. Dave Smith 0-1. Floyd Gass 0-3. Phil Cutchin 2-4. Cliff Speegle 0-8. Ears Whitworth 0-5. Jim Lookabaugh 2-9-1. Ted Cox 0-2. Albert Exendine 0-1-1. Pappy Waldorf 3-0-2. John Maulbetsch 2-4-2. Jim Pixlee 0-2. E.A. Pritchard 1-1. Pinky Griffith 0-2. Paul Davis 0-5. Edwin Parry 0-2. Boyd Hill 0-1.
Bedlam football: Diamond nothing new
On Sept. 4, Oklahoma State unveiled a new formation for a few plays against Washington State. A full-house backfield, in which backup tailbacks Joseph Randle and Jeremy Smith joined Kendall Hunter on the field. One lined up in what has become known as the pistol position, a tailback lined up directly behind a shotgun quarterback. The other two lined up as halfbacks, one on each side of QB Brandon Weeden.
It’s a power-running formation that OSU has continued to use occasionally. Offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen calls the formation the “cross.”
Last Saturday in Waco, Texas, OU flattered the Cowboys in the best way possible: imitation. The Sooners unveiled their own full-house backfield, with the same formation. It, too, worked very well as a power-running formation. Bob Stoops says the Sooners call the formation “backs,” while some media dubbed it the “diamond.”
There is little new under the autumn sun. OU got the formation from OSU, and I don’t know where Holgorsen got it, but I know at least how far back it goes. 1969. In Chuck Fairbanks’ third season as OU’s head coach, the Sooners used a similar form of the cross or the diamond.
OU called it the Diamond T and surprisingly unveiled it as their primary offense in September 1969. The Diamond T was not exactly like OSU’s cross or OU’s backs, because sophomore quarterback Jack Mildren did not line up in the shotgun. So it truly was a diamond; tailback Steve Owens lined up directly behind Mildren, with fullback Mike Harper and wingback Roy Bell each lined up behind a guard, a few yards behind Mildren and a few yards in front of Owens.
The Diamond-T was designed to continue the benefits of the I formation — Owens was a decent I formation tailback, if you hadn’t heard — and incorporate some option possibilities, too.
Here’s what The Oklahoman’s Bob Hurt wrote about the Diamond T after OU opened the 1969 season with a 48-21 rout of Wisconsin: “Certain disadvantages are built into the Diamond T. There’s only one wide receiver, the split end, which allows defenses to gang up and makes quick passes more difficult. Fairbanks, however, plans to use all three running backs as receivers.
“The coach subscribes to the nothing-is-new-in-football theory. The Diamond T wasn’t invented, he said. It evolved. The exact position of the backs may be unique but the theories were borrowed from others and refined to suit OU’s personnel.”
Alas, the Diamond T didn’t last at OU. The Sooners didn’t stick with the Diamond T, migrating back to the traditional I formation during a bittersweet season, which OU went 6-4 but Owens won the Heisman Trophy.
