By JOHN E. HOOVER Sports Columnist on Jan 11, 2013, at 5:44 PM Updated on 1/11 at 5:44 PM
NORMAN — Like coaches at just about every college football program, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops has routine annual performance reviews with his staff.
And just like most coaches — most employees, actually — Stoops will at some point present those reviews to his boss, athletic director Joe Castiglione.
During a 62-minute, year-end, question-and-answer session with a small group of writers on Friday inside the Switzer Center, I asked Stoops if the performance of his defensive coordinator — his brother, Mike Stoops — would be a hard sell to Castiglione when it's time for reviews.
“No,” Bob Stoops said. “Mike didn't do it. Mike didn't make a play, or not make a play. Mike isn't the only guy out there coaching, and Mike isn't playing. There's a lot of issues that need to be addressed and improved.”
Stoops re-hired his brother this time last year after Mike Stoops was fired two months earlier from his head coaching position at Arizona. That forced then-defensive coordinator Brent Venables—Mike Stoops’ full-time replacement since Stoops took the Arizona job after the 2003 season—to rethink his future. Venables left for the defensive coordinator job at Clemson, leaving Mike Stoops entirely in charge of the OU defense.
The last time Mike Stoops coordinated a Big 12 defense, Kansas State was the league champion with a running quarterback. Wait, that sounds too familiar. OK, anyway, the rest of the conference at that time was still running conventional offenses, complete with tight ends and fullbacks and big, huge linemen. Now, all but two Big 12 teams run a variation of the spread offense at a no-huddle pace almost exclusively.
Things changed quite a bit since Mike Stoops prepped for Big 12 offenses eight years ago, so I asked Bob Stoops if this was a break-in year for his brother.
“Yeah, to a degree. If you need to say that, I don't know if it was or not,” he said. “Early on in the season everybody's singing his praises, and now everyone isn't. You know what, that's what fans do. That's what you guys do. We don't much care. You've gotta stick to doing what you do and improving it. Whatever issues there were, whether player issues or scheme issues or subbing issues, you just keep working to get them improved.”
Bob Stoops agreed that his brother’s defense tailed off in 2012 — that they got worse in many areas instead of getting better.
“I would say in some cases,” Bob Stoops said. “Some of it's due to the offenses we saw. I would say pass defense wasn't as much of an issue as run defense. Some of that was what we were doing scheme-wise. Some of it's techinque. It's a little bit of all of that. In the end, I don't feel we had as many mental breakdowns. But it still needs to improve. And we've got to do some things scheme-wise to make it improve. And players as well.”
When I asked Stoops for some general examples of how to improve the scheme, he offered, “It's just where do you put your pieces? Are you gonna be stronger defending the pass or stronger defending the run? That's the game everybody's playing. We've got to find a better balance of it.”
Balance was one of the topics Mike Stoops addressed later Friday afternoon during a segment on WWLS radio in Oklahoma City.
“We don’t have good balance on our football team right now, and that’s what we’re probably missing all the way through it,” Mike Stoops said. “When you look at our team, there’s too many areas that we’re not we quite where we need to be to be a real championship caliber team.”
In Mike Stoops’ first season back, the Sooners yielded a school-record 398.3 yards per game total offense. The previous mark — 376.2 — was set last season.
“We all need to do a better job,” Mike Stoops said. “It’s nobody’s fault. We all need to do a better job collectively.”
Mike Stoops also acknowledged a period of adjustment in 2012 — for him and for his players.
“It was really hard for me to come back and it’s so different, even though everything is the same, the players are so different,” he said. “That was really difficult for me, to establish myself with our group. That took a lot of time. My style’s a lot different from a lot of other peoples’. And that’s just what I expect from my players.
“I think at times that was hard on my players to understand and see. And that made it a very difficult year. Because we were under so much pressure defensively, in the secondary, as you know. In this league, people can put a lot of pressure on you, and that’s where you need to be really good.
“But overall I’m proud of our secondary guys. I thought they played pretty well throughout the course of the season. We led the conference in pass defense or pass touchdowns or whatever. There were a lot of good things still that came out of the season.”
Mike Stoops said the coaching staff is well aware of some vital components missing from this year’s team.
“We have to reestablish an attitude,” he said, “and some leadership on our football team, especially defensively. Those are the most important elements to having any great defense, and that’s something we have to establish that here at Oklahoma. And that’s my No. 1 priority. That’s something that we’ve lacked for whatever reason and it’s hurt our development.”
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