Stoops to Ohio State...
Published: 4/25/2011 10:59 PM
Last Modified: 4/25/2011 10:59 PM
... Mark Stoops, that is. The little brother who Bob, Mike and Ron once used as their personal toy in the Youngstown bedroom they all shared.
Mark Stoops is a possibility to replace Jim Tressel, assuming Tressel resigns in the wake of NCAA sanctions surely headed Ohio State's way. So says Bryan Fischer of CBSSports.com. He tweeted it Monday morning, around the time the NCAA's notice of allegations against Tressel and Ohio State went public thanks to the Columbus Dispatch.
Why not Bob Stoops, the Oklahoma coach who Yahoo! college football columnist Tom Dienhart connected to the Buckeyes job during a chat Monday morning? (Actually, Dienhart connected Urban Meyer to the job first, then threw in Stoops, Bo Pelini, Gary Pinkel and Brian Kelly.)
Why not Pelini? San Jose Mercury News college writer Jon Wilner tweeted the Nebraska coach would replace Tressel. Called it "an educated guess."
Fischer countered that Pelini "wouldn't take it with sanctions." Seems reasonable that if Pelini "wouldn't take it with sanctions," neither would his old chum from Youngstown.
Here's another reason Bob is the wrong Stoops for Ohio State: Last July, several months before the spit hit the fan, Big Ten blogger Adam Rittenberg hosted a chat on ESPN.com. Someone from Columbus asked about Tressel's successor. Rittenberg mentioned Pelini, Stoops and Meyer.
Then someone who identified himself as "Bob Stoops in Norman, Ok" joined the chat with: "Adam, simply stated, a move from OU to OSU is a lateral move at best."
Was it really Stoops, with nothing better to do on a summer afternoon than lurk in a Big Ten chat room? Was it really Stoops right there with HawkeyePapyrus from Schenectady, G. Mason from Hoping to move soon and Billy Goat from Chicago?
Sure. Course it was. Scoffing at the notion of making "a lateral move at best."
Rittenberg, to his credit, played along. Here was his zinger of a reply to "Bob Stoops in Norman Ok": "At Ohio State, unlike Oklahoma, you can actually make moves independent of what your archrival does. It was comical to me how Oklahoma was willing to follow Texas (during the realignment frenzy) no matter what, as if it couldn't survive without UT. Imagine Ohio State doing that."
Now imagine Ohio State introducing a Stoops after firing Tressel. Not Bob, Mike or Ron. Their plaything, Mark.
Mark Stoops, 20 years a football coach but never in charge of his own program? Suddenly in charge of The Ohio State University?
He'd take it with sanctions.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
