Oklahoma football: One era ended, another began 4 years ago today
By Chip Rouse
The torched was passed four years ago today, as one legendary era ended and another began in the history of Oklahoma football.
On June 7, 2017, Bob Stoops announced his retirement after 18 highly successful seasons as head coach of the Sooners. Lincoln Riley, the team’s offensive coordinator, who Stoops had hired prior to the 2015 season, ascended to the lead role.
Oklahoma football has barely missed a beat since. In fact, some would say it has gotten even better.
Stoops, the second-longest tenured coach in OU football history and the program’s winningest with 190 wins, 48 losses and a .798 winning percentage, returned Sooner football to relevance and national standing after taking the reigns of the program in 1999. In the four season prior to Stoops’ arrival, Oklahoma had an overall record of 17-27-1 and just 10-21 in the Big 12.
While Stoops was head coach at Oklahoma, the Sooners won 10 Big 12 championships, one national championship (2000) and appeared in four BCS national championship games and one College Football Playoff.
Stoops took Oklahoma to a postseason bowl game in all 18 seasons he was head coach. He was a two-time Walter Camp National Coach of the Year (2000 and 2003), Associated Press Coach of the Year (2000) and a six-time Big 12 Coach of the Year.
When Lincoln Riley took over the helm in 2017, he inherited a Sooner team loaded with talent and high national standing, including a third-year starting quarterback, Baker Mayfield, who would go on to win the Heisman Trophy that season, the sixth Oklahoma player to achieve college football’s highest individual prize.
The transition was almost seamless, Riley took the handoff from Stoops and never looked back. Riley won 12 games in each of his first three seasons. His 36 wins from 2017 through 2019 were the fastest in the first three years of any OU football coach, and he tacked on another eight wins in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Including his first two seasons at OU as offensive coordinator under Stoops, Oklahoma has been Big 12 champions every season (6) Riley has been in Norman. He also has taken the Sooners to three College Football Playoff appearances in his four seasons as head coach.
Riley continues to call the plays for the Oklahoma offense, and the Sooner offense has finished in the top three three times — twice as No. 1 among all FBS offenses — in his four seasons as head coach.
OU athletic director Joe Castiglione absolutely made the right choice when he hired Bob Stoops. As emotional the day was when Stoops officially announced his decision to step down, the Sooners haven’t missed a beat since. They may have even stepped it up a notch.