Could Bob Stoops return to college coaching somewhere else?

Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops surprised the college football world, and sent shock waves throughout the Sooner Nation, when he announced his retirement earlier this week.

He is stepping down from the program he resurrected and returned to national prominence in his 18 stellar seasons as head coach of Sooner football.

Very few head coaches are afforded the opportunity or are willing to step aside when things are going as well as they are at Oklahoma. Stoops’ Sooners are coming off a second-straight 11-win season and 12th in 18 seasons, a 10th Big 12 championship and a dominant Sugar Bowl victory over Auburn.

On the field, the team is led by a two-time Heisman finalist at quarterback and loaded with All-Big 12 talent on both sides of the ball. And the Sooners have a top-10 recruiting class coming in that will help the Sooners sustain success in the immediate years ahead.

So why leave now when things are going so splendidly? That’s the question that is on most everyone’s mind, everyone’s but Bob Stoops, that is. The answer, from what we can gather from all that has come out since the announcement is: Because he can, and why not now?

After all, Stoops is handing off the program to one of the brightest young minds in college football today in Lincoln Riley, who is inheriting an absolute gold mine and the opportunity to be successful right out of the gate.

One of Stoops’ biggest influencers and his former boss at Florida, Steve Spurrier, said after hearing the news about one of his former prized assistants that it isn’t as shocking as some are making it out to be.

It was surprising but not shocking,” Spurrier said. “Bobby always indicated he wasn’t going to coach forever.” Spurrier said. “There is life after football, and once he (Stoops) decided the time was right, he was going to move on.”

“No smoking gun anywhere,” Stoops said on Friday in an interview Friday on ESPN’s “Dan Patrick Show. “I guess people have a hard time when someone just makes the decision to handle their life the way they want to and step away in a proper fashion and hand something off that’s so good. But that really is just the way it is.”

Oklahoma Sooners Football

So the winningest coach in the storied history of Oklahoma football is out – on his own terms – and Lincoln Riley is in. The playbook is still being written on what Stoops will do next. For the time being, at least, he will assume the nebulous honorific that always seems to be the role the good guys go into next when they move on from one job but remain on the university payroll: special assistant to the (fill in the blank).

Football has been Stoops’ entire life. At 56 years of age, he is still a relatively young man and, in his own words, of good enough health not to prevent him from continuing to coach. It is hard to imagine that he won’t remain connected to the sport in some capacity.

Might we find him in the broadcast booth, at Oklahoma or perhaps on higher ground as a network college football analyst, sometime soon?

Doing things with the media has never been something high on Bob Stoops’ like-to-do list, but he has seen what his contemporaries have done and enjoyed doing when they are between jobs or finished with coaching gigs. That is one potential landing spot for the man they used to call “Big game, Bob.”

But is the man who has been the face of Oklahoma football for the past 18 seasons really ready to give up coaching. Stoops says he has no intention of becoming another Urban Meyer and lie in wait for the next big coaching job to surface.

When asked that most obvious of questions by Dan Patrick on Friday, Stoops said, “I’m anxious to see what opportunities will be there. I will say it isn’t my intention to coach again, but we’ll see what else comes.”

Oh, really. We’ll just see how all of that plays out. I’m sure the longtime Oklahoma head coach will be presented with plenty of opportunities. He’ll certainly be a hot commodity in a buyer’s market, but as they like to say, you can take the coach out of football, but you can’t take football out of the coach.

As difficult as it would be for Sooner fans to accept the idea of seeing Stoops on the sidelines for another school, I would not rule out the possibility. Although I would say the probability of that happening is likely on the lower side, and virtually nil in the immediate time frame.

With all the success he has had at Oklahoma and now out of that role, you know that Stoops’ name is going to come up on the short list of any head-coaching position that comes open at a Power Five conference school.

And if one of those future suitors were to be a Notre Dame, where current head man Brian Kelly may be on the hot seat; Ohio State, a giant college icon in Stoops’ home state; or even Iowa, his alma mater – who knows? – he just might be persuaded to return to the sidelines and take on a new challenge.

As for the possibility that the former Sooner head coach might be enticed to try his luck in the NFL, I would think that Stoops has seen enough carnage at the next level among some of his fellow college coaches (e.g., Steve Spurrier, Chip Kelly, etc.) for him to perish that thought.

For the time being, Stoops is interested in just being a fan.

“I’ve never tailgated,” he told Dan Patrick. “Never been to a game as a spectator. I may have to buy an RV and learn how to tailgate and get the charcoal going.”

Sounds like a great first step into retirement.