There's no catching Saban, but Stoops still commands national respect
Published: 7/17/2012 7:45 AM
Last Modified: 7/17/2012 7:45 AM
I’ll be cranking out Big 12 football lists later this week to get everyone in the spirit of the conference’s media days beginning next Monday. One of them ranks the 10 league coaches. I don’t think it’s too big a spoiler to let you know Bob Stoops tops that bill. Shocker I know, since the guy has won seven Big 12 championships.
More interesting, I think, is that Stoops still commands a lofty place nationally. I wasn’t sure that would be the case, given that two of OU’s last three bowl appearances have come in the Sun and Insight, and given Stoops’ well-documented trouble in BCS games.
But there he is – very near the top of three different national coach rankings published since last spring. Here’s what Travis Haney came up with on ESPN.com just last week:
1 – Nick Saban
2 – Bill Snyder
3 – Urban Meyer
4 – Stoops
“Stoops is in perfect control of a program that runs as much like a business as any around the country,” Haney wrote. “Everything is very polished, very uniform. Oklahoma is the Atlanta Braves of college football, in more than one sense. And his coaching tree is solid. It was Stoops who brought Mike Leach to the masses. He also hired Mark Mangino, Kevin Wilson and Kevin Sumlin, and he had Bo Pelini on staff.”
Last May, Matt Hayes and Steve Greenberg teamed up to rank coaches for The Sporting News. They went:
1 – Saban
2 – Chris Petersen
3 – Meyer
4 – Les Miles
5 – Stoops
The text: “Let’s get this out of the way right now: Apart from the 2010 Fiesta Bowl laugher over Connecticut, ‘Big Game Bob’ hasn’t won a BCS game in nine years. So his seven Big 12 championships don’t resonate? Stoops’ 96 victories over the nine seasons since his ‘heyday’ don’t cut it? Please. Oklahoma is still a superpower.”
Athlon compiled their ranking around the same time:
1 – Saban
2 – Meyer
3 – Stoops
Their question: “Would you take a coach that struggles to get to a BCS bowl and wins one every eight years, or take a coach that consistently gets there but has a disappointing BCS record after six years?”
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
