Oklahoma football: Mike Stoops begins first OU season without Bob

For quite a few years, their were two Stoops brothers patrolling the sidelines at Oklahoma, but now there is just one. Mike Stoops is about to begin his first season at OU without his brother, Bob, by his side.

Mike has been the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma for 10 seasons, with an eight-year stint in between as the head coach at Arizona. Mike joined his older brother at OU when Bob became the Sooners’ head coach in 1999. Prior to that time, Bob had been the defensive coordinator at Florida and before that at Kansas State, where brother Mike was also on Bill Snyder’s staff.

Oklahoma was Bob’s first and only stop — so far, at least — as a collegiate head coach. Now, Mike finds himself working for another first-time head coach in Lincoln Riley.

The 2017 season is Mike’s first at Oklahoma without Bob, who announced his retirement on June 6 after 18 highly successful seasons that produced a national championship, 10 Big 12 championships and 18 consecutive postseason appearances.

Mike has been part of 106 wins at Oklahoma, or 56 percent of brother Bob’s record-setting 190 wins, the most of any head coach in Sooner football history.

No one knows how long Mike will want to stay at Oklahoma now that his brother has moved on, but he definitely will be directing the much-maligned Sooner defense in 2017 and for the foreseeable future.

Asked what it will be like reporting to someone other than Bob as an Oklahoma assistant head coach and defensive coordinator, Mike appears to have no reservations. In fact, Mike has been one of Lincoln Riley’s biggest supporters.

“Lincoln is smart beyond his years,” Mike told Tulsa World sports columnist Guerin Emig recently. “In all his experiences, he’s been successful, and he trusts the process, whether it’s his process or our process. He knows what we do, and he understands it.”

The Sooner defensive coordinator is also quick to prop up his new head c5b1489oach against those who want to label Riley as a coach out of the Texas Tech mold who only cares about offensive football and winning games running up plenty of points and simply outscoring the opposition.

“There is nobody more knowledgeable about a defense than an offensive coordinator,” Stoops says. Riley was the offensive coordinator at East Carolina for four years before coming to Oklahoma in 2015.

Mike says Riley is much like brother Bob in that when he says something people listen, and they know he knows of what he speaks and means what he says.

Mike also says he thinks this season will be more different for Bob than it will be for him. As for Bob returning to coaching at a future date, Mike said, ” I don’t see that, but you never know.”

Time will eventually tell for both Stoops brothers.

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