Stormin in Norman
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Bob Stoops’ statue to immortalize OU’s winningest coaching era

By Chip Rouse

NEW ORLEANS, LA - JANUARY 02: Head coach Bob Stoops of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts after a touchdown against the Auburn Tigers during the Allstate Sugar Bowl at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 2, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
NEW ORLEANS, LA - JANUARY 02: Head coach Bob Stoops of the Oklahoma Sooners reacts after a touchdown against the Auburn Tigers during the Allstate Sugar Bowl at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 2, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /
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Bob Stoops has earned his rightful place as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, coaches in Oklahoma’s glorious football history.

On Saturday, a bronze statue of the winningest Sooner football coach will be dedicated on the lawn directly south of the Switzer Center outside of Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, and the head coach of 18 Oklahoma football seasons will take his deserving place among the statues of three other Sooner football coaching legends.

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The statues of Bennie Owen, Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer are already there, and on Saturday, Stoops will officially make it a quartet, a group responsible for nearly 75 years of Oklahoma football greatness and almost 70 percent of the school’s 884 total wins. All four of the former Oklahoma head coaches are members of the century club, having won more than 100 games during their time on the Sooner sidelines.

Stoops is the winningest Oklahoma football coach, delivering 190 to the win column, including a national championship in 2000, his second season in Norman.

You could make a strong case that the statue of Stoops should stand apart or be positioned in front of the other OU coaching icons. Of course, that will not happen, but the truth is no Sooner head coach distinguished himself the way Stoops did.

It is true that Stoops won only one national championship at Oklahoma, while Wilkinson and Switzer won three each, but Stoops’ legacy is defined not just by the number of wins he accomplished in his 18 seasons at the helm, but by how consistently successful his Sooner teams were over nearly two decades.

During the Stoops era, Oklahoma won 10 Big 12 championships, appeared in a postseason bowl game every year that he was head coach, including four BCS National Championship games, produced two Heisman Trophy winners, 37 First-Team All-Americans and 83 NFL Draft picks.

Six of Stoops’ OU teams won 12 or more games in a seasons, and he had 12 seasons with at least 11 wins. Stoops did not have a losing season the entire time he was Oklahoma’s head coach.

The statue dedication is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Saturday and is one of several pre-game activities planned ahead of the annual Red-White spring game, set to kick off at approximately 1:15 p.m. at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

A number of former Oklahoma players who played under Stoops are expected to attend the statue dedication ceremony and the spring game, during which arguably the school’s greatest head football coach will be recognized.

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