OU Football: Five Reasons Things Have Never Been Better in Norman
By Chip Rouse
![Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield celebrates in the crowd with fans following the game against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Boone Pickens Stadium. The Sooners defeated the Cowboys 58-23. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Nov 28, 2015; Stillwater, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield celebrates in the crowd with fans following the game against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Boone Pickens Stadium. The Sooners defeated the Cowboys 58-23. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/57eb9b6fc06ed2c6a398263e5e409c54e04b2aed56e522d3e5d8ca920adf3ac7.jpg)
OU Football’s Winningest Head Coach – And That Says Something
Bob Stoops has won more games (179) than any of the 20 Sooner head football coaches that preceded him in the program’s storied and star-studded history. He has nine Big 12 championships and has led the Sooners to 17 consecutive postseason bowl appearances that matches the time he has been at Oklahoma.
He won the school’s seventh national championship in football in 2000, his second season as the Sooners head coach, and took Oklahoma to three more national championship games in the BCS era (Bowl Championship Subdivision) plus the College Football Playoff last season.
No team in a Power Five conference has won more games than the Oklahoma Sooners during the time that Stoops has been at OU. The Sooners have 13 seasons of 10 or more wins under Stoops and 10 with 11 or more victories. Stoops has never had a losing record in 17 seasons as OU head coach.
Despite all of this, the Sooner head coach has been the subject of heavy criticism from his own fan base for winning just eight of 17 bowl appearances and, most of all, for losing four out of five times when playing for the national championship or in the Playoff to determine the national champion.
Sooner fans who are not happy with having Bob Stoops as the head coach not only are woefully misguided in their thinking, in my opinion, but also being carelessly unrealistic. In the category of “Be careful what you wish for,” I ask the Stoops dissenters: If not him, who would you get that, importantly, would be 1) as good or better and 2) available to come to Oklahoma as the next Sooner head coach?
To me, and hopefully the vast majority of Oklahoma football fans, it is a moot point.
Next: Filling in and up the Football Stadium with a New Modern Look