Think most coaches would rather go out on top than worry about fairness to the next guy. But even if, don't think coaching this upcoming season and leaving after would have been unfair to Riley at all. Like you said, OU is almost always a Top 10 team with star players, coaching another season wouldn't have changed it that much.
Agree on the first point - you don't want to leave in a down year. It also makes it feels like you're being pushed out rather than truly leaving voluntarily. Stoops certainly could have stayed on for this season, but they may have been planning this already long ago and just wanted to make the announcement / transition away from any more sensitive times like recruiting. Plus, the season would become all about him instead of the team, which he may not want.
Ya Stoops and the AD said it's been in the works for a year now. Another weird thing with the timing is that Riley is basically an interim HC this year in that he is handcuffed to the staff at this point. Who knows if Riley would've changed things up had this happened sooner but sure he would have made a few. Read somewhere that Riley may go after a Jets coordinator to replace Mike Stoops but then again, gotta wonder if Bob would hand over the keys and stay with the program only to see baby bro get the axe.
I'm surprised no one challenged this statement because Oklahoma has fallen off the last ten years. Not bad but definitely not dominant
Yeah, true. With the emergence of Baylor and TCU, Ou didnt really dominate the last 10 years. I quit watching so much college ball as Texas went down the shithole in last 10 years and havent really paid that much attention to the big 12 or FBS in general. I was used to when it was always Texas or OU battling for best record in the big 12. He was still the best recruiter the last 10 years and probably couldve been rated as a top 2-3 coach in the big 12 as well.
Funny same here. After UT won the national title I watched a few more years to watch the young guys finish out but definitely not as much as watched the previous 25 years (my older siblings also attended UT) Really between the Rockets Texans and Longhorns I had to cutback on something
OU has won 6 of the last 10 Big XII titles, including the last 2. They finished in the top 6 nationally in 3 out of the last 4 years. TCU won 0.5 titles and Baylor won 1.5, during that stretch. They just replaced Texas and Nebraska as the occasional teams to rise up, but OU's been the dominant force all 16 of his years.
Interesting. Well, I was right in my first assessment then. Not following college football so heavily as years past, it seemed like baylor and tcu took a huge jump for title contention. Was there ever a reason for his all of a sudden retirement? I still think Patterson is a better coach than him though. That guy does so much with so little.
Sure both sides knew the best was behind them so instead of dragging it out like Penn St., FSU, Texas did or possibly becoming a LSU-type situation, they decided just to cut ties. That's assuming there isn't some bombshell like USC or Oregon had. Also, Stoops is young enough to give it another shot should something pop up, maybe the NFL comes calling?
