Latest news with #Stoops
USA Today
4 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Oklahoma Sooners among The Athletic's top 5 football programs since 2000
It was December of 1998 when new Oklahoma Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione and the program introduced former Florida defensive coordinator Bob Stoops as the next head football coach at OU. Stoops replaced John Blake, who'd led the program through three rough years before being fired by Castiglione following the 1998 season. However, Stoops was really the hopeful replacement for the legendary Barry Switzer, who had resigned after the 1988 season. There were ten dark years in Norman, as the program shuffled through head coaches Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger, and Blake from 1989 to 1998, losing an unacceptable number of games in the process and fading from the national spotlight. None of those coaches was a suitable heir to Switzer, who had been OU's head coach from 1973 to 1988 and won three national championships. Switzer had been at OU since 1966, serving as the offensive coordinator before his promotion to head coach. Castiglione and the Sooners believed they had their next successful head coach in Stoops, and they were more than right. What has followed is 26 years where Oklahoma has been back in the spotlight, typically among the nation's elite teams from 1999 to 2021. Although Stoops retired after the 2016 season, the success he set in motion has positioned OU at the forefront of the sport. The Athletic took on the daunting task of ranking the best college football programs of the 21st century last week, and obviously, the Sooners were very high on the list. Oklahoma was ranked third, falling behind only Alabama and Ohio State. Though the list doesn't include Stoops' first year at the helm, it includes the rest of his head coaching career, and that of Lincoln Riley and Brent Venables. Stoops led the Sooners to the first national championship of the 21st century, with a perfect season in 2000. The year concluded with a win over Florida State in the title game, giving Oklahoma a total of seven national championships. Although Oklahoma hasn't won it all since then, it has been among the top-performing programs in America over the last quarter-century. The Sooners have played for three more national titles and made four trips to the four-team College Football Playoff. The program won four Heisman Trophies and had four other players finish as finalists for the award. OU won 14 conference championships, and a bevy of All-Americans put the Sooners as a no-doubt top-five program since 2000. The standard was set in Norman well before Stoops arrived. Coaches such as Bennie Owen, Bud Wilkinson, Chuck Fairbanks, and Switzer defined what it meant to win in college football and at OU. However, after one of the worst decades of Oklahoma Football in the 90s, it was Stoops who quickly showed that he and the program could meet that standard again. Oklahoma Football is still feeling the effects of his excellence over a quarter of a century later. Yes, the program has had some tough times lately. The handoff from Stoops to Riley looked so good for so many years, but the program was quietly slipping under Riley's watch. When he bolted to Southern California, Venables was hired to take the reins. It's been a rough go under Venables at times, with the only two losing seasons since the Blake era happening under his watch. But Venables had no easy task taking over for Riley, and he's doing his best to get the program back to its Stoops-era winning ways. He has the defense ready to contend, but the offense took a hit in 2024 with a bevy of injuries limiting the team's potential. But Venables and his staff have positioned themselves to be much better in 2025. It's a big year for Venables and a big year for this program in 2025. Though the straits aren't as dire as they were when Stoops took over in 1999, Oklahoma's backs are against the wall this season. However, the blueprint is there for the fourth-year head coach, who leads a program that has defied the odds plenty of times before, and is clearly one of the elite programs in all of college football. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
USA Today
11-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Oklahoma head coach not interested in school's AD opening
When longtime Oklahoma Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione announced his upcoming retirement earlier this week, OU Football fans immediately pointed to one of the other pillars of the program as a potential replacement. Bob Stoops was hired to coach the Sooners during Castiglione's first year at the helm. He brought OU back to national prominence, coaching in Norman from 1999 to 2016, and winning the national championship in 2000. Additionally, he served as the interim head coach for Oklahoma's Alamo Bowl victory over Oregon to close out the 2021 season, after Lincoln Riley bolted for Southern California. Stoops helped guide the team and fanbase through a rocky season and became even more of a legend in Sooner Nation during a difficult time. More: Social media reactions to the news of Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione retiring Castiglione, OU's AD since 1998, isn't retiring immediately, but the search is on to replace him. However, it looks like Stoops won't be in the running for the gig. At Oklahoma's press conference on Tuesday to officially announce Castiglione's transition, Stoops was in attendance, and Carey Murdock, who covers OU for On3 Sports and SoonerScoop, asked the former coach about his interest in the AD job. "Oh no, no, no, no," Stoops said. "If I wanted another job, I'd be a head coach again. At a university or somewhere. No, no. That job would never have been for me." Stoops has coached in two versions of the XFL and currently coaches in the UFL, a spring football league. He initially coached the Dallas Renegades before the team became the Arlington Renegades. If Stoops coaches again in 2026, it'll be his fifth season of spring football. He won a championship for Arlington in the XFL in 2023. He clearly has no interest in being an administrator and even told Murdock that people still call asking if he's interested in taking a college head coaching job. As for who could replace Castiglione, it looks like Mississippi State AD Zac Selmon, who tutored under Castiglione for many years, is one of the front-runners. Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt is another one of the prevalent names in the conversation as well. Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X @Aaron_Gelvin.
USA Today
07-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione to retire during upcoming school year
One of the longest-tenured figures in major college athletics will be calling it a career. Oklahoma athletics director Joe Castiglione, who is about to enter his 28th season in his current role, will retire, the school revealed July 7. The university sent a media advisory to confirm Castiglione will 'announce his planned retirement' at a press conference July 8. The 67-year-old Castiglione will remain with the Sooners as athletic director emeritus after the hiring of his successor, according to The Oklahoman. Castiglione, the longest-serving AD in major college sports, has led the Oklahoma athletic department since 1998, when he was hired by the Sooners following a five-year stint at Missouri. Over the past 27 years, he has established himself as one of the more decorated and heralded athletic directors in college sports, with Oklahoma teams racking up 26 national titles and 117 conference championships. Perhaps his most impactful move came in 1999, when he hired then-Florida defensive coordinator Bob Stoops as the Sooners football coach after the firing of John Blake. Stoops led Oklahoma to a national championship in just his second season, won 10 Big 12 titles and went 191-48 during his 19-year run at the school. Under Stoops and his successor, Lincoln Riley, the Sooners have had four Heisman Trophy winners since 2003. In men's basketball, he hired Lon Kruger, who guided the Sooners to the 2016 Final Four. Two Oklahoma men's basketball players, Blake Griffin in 2009 and Buddy Hield in 2016, won national player of the year honors during Castiglione's time at the school. Oklahoma has also been a national powerhouse in softball and women's gymnastics with each program winning seven national titles since 2013. More recently, Oklahoma moved conferences, leaving its longtime home, the Big 12, for the SEC ahead of the 2024-25 academic year. The Sooners' broader athletic success earned Castiglione athletic director of the year honors from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) in 2000 and 2018.
USA Today
01-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Stoops v. Brown one of eight greatest coaching rivalries of 21st century
Twenty-five years into the millennium and lists abound about the best such-and-such over the first quarter-century. One of the most intriguing such lists - when it comes to college football, anyway - is CBS Sports' look at some of the game's biggest coaching rivalries. Different, in part, from team rivalries, a coaching rivalry can exist with animosity even when one of the coaches changes schools. For the Oklahoma man on the list, though, he certainly didn't. Former OU head coach Bob Stoops' rivalry with ex-Texas head man Mack Brown is the very first rivalry listed on CBS' look. The two met 15 times over Stoops' 18 full seasons in Norman. OU took nine of the 15 games. Four of the nine wins came by an average margin of 45 points. "Both teams were ranked in 12 of the 15 games shared between Brown and Stoops. That includes four top-five matchups. Stoops won a national title in 2000 after trouncing Texas 63-14 in the regular season, and Brown followed that up in 2005 with a 45-12 win against Oklahoma on the march to a Longhorns national championship," author Will Backus wrote in the ranking. Stoops retired from collegiate coaching in 2017, though he did return for one game in 2021 after the man who replaced him in OU, Lincoln Riley, had left for Southern California before the Sooners' Alamo Bowl win over Oregon. Brown coached Texas from 1998-2013. He returned to college football in 2017 with North Carolina, the place he began his FBS head coaching career, before being fired at the end of last season. Stoops ranks first in Oklahoma history in wins with 191, and his .799 winning percentage trails only Barry Switzer (.837) and Bud Wilkinson (.826). Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions.
USA Today
09-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Iowa women's basketball doles out first college offer to 2030 recruit
Iowa women's basketball doles out first college offer to 2030 recruit Iowa women's basketball is the first program to offer class of 2030 guard Claire Stoops. Stoops is just getting set to enter eighth grade, but the youngster from Indiana already has serious game. A member of Indiana Basketball Club 15U 3SSB, Stoops recently dropped 25 points in a 15U matchup. Stoops' ball handling, her ability to create off the bounce and her perimeter shooting already look advanced at such a young age. The class of 2030 point guard caught the attention of 247Sports scout Brandon Clay recently with her willingness to be a student of the game. Stoops spent part of her spring watching another pair of elite Hawkeye guard offers in Kate Harpring and Kaleena Smith in the 2026 and 2027 classes, respectively. Here's a look at some of Stoops' recent highlights with Indiana Basketball Club 15U 3SSB. 2030 Point Guard Claire Stoops continues to impress this spring with Indiana Basketball Club 3SSB 15U Daniels Dangerous in the pick and roll game and deadly from the 3pt line — JMBPromotions (@BlandingThough1) May 7, 2025 Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes and opinions. Follow Josh on X: @JoshOnREF
