Nov. 1, 2000
Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.
Nobody thought Bob Stoops could possibly do it that quickly.
To be sure, he was stepping into shoes that in days of yore had walked the mountain top. Bud Wilkinson had won three national titles at Oklahoma and had directed the Sooners to 47 consecutive victories -- still the longest winning streak in NCAA Div. 1 history. Then Barry Switzer had come along almost two decades later, adopted Darrell Royal's UT wishbone offense and coached the Sooners to three more national championships.
AS OKLAHOMA'S FOOTBALL media guide rather prominently points out, "Oklahoma has had fewer losing seasons than any other major college in the country over the past 100 years" (11 since 1895), and "Oklahoma has won six national championships in football: 1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975 and 1985. Since 1950, the Oklahoma Sooners have won more national championships than any other school in the nation. Moreover, they have finished in the top three 17 times, the top five 23 times and the top ten 28 times, more times than any other team."
Those words strongly suggest a coach simply cannot fail at OU. All that tradition, all that history of success, all that recruiting muscle, all that fanatical support, how could a coach fail?
Well, Gomer Jones failed, trying to take up the torch after Wilkinson stepped down. Gary Gibbs was no ball of fire, trying to maintain the Switzer pace. Howard Schnellenberger lasted only one season after succeding Gibbs. And then came John Blake, a three-year disaster by OU standards. Blake's teams went 3-8, 4-8 and 5-6.
SO OUT WENT BLAKE and in came Bob Stoops from Florida in 1999. Stoops, one of Hayden Fry's guys at the University of Iowa in his playing days and his early coaching days, had been defensive coordinator and assistant head coach at Kansas State and then assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for the high-flying Gators. When he took the OU job, predictions were being made rather freely that it would take him at least four years to get the Sooners back to their old level of contending for championships.
And yet there they were last Saturday in college football's most spotlighted and celebrated collision of the season, the nation's No. 3 team taking on and beating No. 1-ranked Nebraska in a showdown reminiscent of how it was in 1969 when No. 1 Texas took on the challenge of No. 2 Arkansas in that grand December shootout in Fayetteville, and how it was in 1971 when No. 1 Nebraska met and finally mastered No. 2 Oklahoma in what some still regard as the greatest college game ever played.
Who would have thought Bob Stoops could take the Sooners, now ranked No. 1 themselves, that far that fast, OU's advantages notwithstanding?
And how did he do it?
Well, for one thing, he didn't exactly inherit an empty cupboard. Blake's final edition of Sooners might have given up 34 points to Texas and 29 to A&M and 41 to Oklahoma State but it still wound up as a defense that ranked in the top ten nationally.
But the Sooners were rather aimless on offense and their recruiting pipelines were clogged. Oklahoma State not only was beating them on the football field, the Cowboys also were outrecruiting them for the best homegrown talent. In Oklahoma, that sort of thing just isn't acceptable.
AND, HORROR OF ALL horrors from Stoops' point of view, when he got to Norman he found he had not inherited a quarterback worth his salt.
Stoops and his new staff solved that problem in a hurry. Sports Illustrated documented it well in its Oct. 16 issue in reporting on the massacre that had just taken place in Dallas when OU met UT in their annual Red River showdown. "The best quarterback in the stadium was Oklahoma senior Josh Heupel (pronounced HYPE-uhl), who came into the game with a slacker's stubble and a savant's grasp of a wide-open Sooners attack that had more thrills than most of the rides at the Texas State Fair going on outside the stadium. 'He's smart, he's savvy, he's the perfect triggerman for this offense,' says Oklahoma's offensive coordinator Mark Mangino. Heupel's numbers -- 17 completions in 27 attempts for 275 yards and a touchdown -- only hint at the extent to which he toyed with the Texas defense. (in OU's 63-14 slaughter).
"Ask him how he ended up in Norman, and Heupel will respond: 'Got a minute?' After starting at Aberdeen (S. Dak.) Central High, he was the backup at Weber State in 1997. When a new coaching staff brought with it a conservative offense the next season, Heupel transferred to Snow Junior College in Ephraim, Utah, where he was an All-American. Meanwhile, Bob Stoops had taken over as coach at Oklahoma, and his offensive coordinator, Mike Leach (now the coach at Texas Tech), wanted to install a wide-open spread offense. The problem was, no one on campus was capable of running it. Leach watched 15 minutes of Heupel on tape, called the kid and left a message that he had a scholarship at Oklahoma if he wanted it."
Turns out, he did. And Oklahoma football hasn't been the same since.
I BRING UP all that background now because Josh Heupel (senior, 6-2, 214) and the Oklahoma Sooners are coming up next for the Baylor Bears (Saturday at Floyd Casey Stadium with kickoff set for 1 p.m., and the television cameras will not be there) as they wind up their four-game "murderer's row" (A&M, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma). The way Heupel played against first Texas and then highly-ranked and unbeaten Kansas State, he will be the most lethal player the Bears have faced this entire season. Yes, even more lethal than those serial scorers that Nebraska offered.
And Oklahoma will be the most explosive foe.
Heupel went into last Saturday's Nebraska showdown with these gaudy numbers: 210 passes attempted in six games, 144 completed, only 4 intercepted, with 11 touchdown throws, 1,894 aerial yards (an average of 315.7), a completion average of 68.6 percent and an efficiency rating of 157.81.
And armed with those numbers, he was being accepted nationally by more and more sports writers as a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate. And Davey O'Brien Quarterback Award candidate. And just about any other trophy you might want to name.
OF COURSE, WHEN you play the passing game, it takes two to tango -- a thrower and a catcher. Heupel had plenty of catchers, 13 as a matter of fact. They're here, they're there, they're everywhere once the ball is snapped. This is not the old run-and-shoot offense that U. of Houston ran so successful for several years, but close.
Busiest of the Oklahoma receivers after six games was Antwone Savage (27 catches for 351 yards) but Josh Norman had 21 grabs for 319 yards, running back Quentin Griffin had 20 for 223 steps, and four others had at least 13 catches for more than 150 yards.
As the Texas Longhorns also learned to their sorrow, the Sooners can romp and stomp overland. They don't scorch the earth the way Switzer's infantry used to do, but an opponent ignores the OU ground threat at its own risk.
The Sooners' foremost ball carrier is Quentin Griffin, who is only a sophomore, and to get an update on that story, let us go back to Sports Illustrated.
After getting Heupel's name on the dotted line, Stoops scrambled to land other important recruits, SI noted. "Stoops hired former Longhorns assistant Bobby Jack Wright to work the state of Texas, but Wright got a late start. By the time he came on the job, in December 1998, most of the state's blue-chip talent was spoken for. When Wright asked Burnis Simon, the coach at Houston's Aldine-Nimitz High, if he had anyone worth pursuing, Simon told him about Quentin Griffin, a 5 foot 6 inch running back who had been overlooked because of his size. Simon assured Wright that Griffin could play, and Oklahoma took a chance on him. Last Saturday, there was Griffin in his home state's most storied stadium, playing against a team that did not recruit him and rushing for a Sooners-record six touchdowns."
After six games and yet to face Nebraska, Griffin had rushed for 11 touchdowns in all, gaining 368 yards on 92 carries. Renaldo Works had 342 steps and four touchdowns on 63 carries.
YEP, THEY'RE BOOMER sooners, all right, booming up a storm. Heupel and Griffin are just the two more successful.
Look for Heupel to be at quarterback and Griffin at what OU calls the "F" back but what you and I would term the tailback most of the time. Returning senior starter Seth Littrell (5-10, 221) will be at fullback and versatile Josh Norman (junior, 6-2, 231, from Midland Lee) will be at a wingback or wideout position in Oklahoma's wide-open offense.
Also starting at the wideout positions are soph Andre Woolfolk (6-0, 180) and soph Antwone Savage (6-1, 190), and at tight end is soph Trent Smith (6-5, 227). But again, OU sends in receivers in such profusion that the starting designations mean little.
The offensive line is active and effective although not overly large in terms, say, of the way the Texas line is large. Soph Frank Romero (6-4, 274) and senior Scott Kempenich (6-5, 302) are the tackles, soph Mike Skinner (6-4, 309) and junior Howard Duncan (6-3, 299) the guards, and senior Bubba Burcham (6-2, 275) the center.
Kempenich and Burcham are the mainstays of that line but all of them have been playing well. They've only permitted 10 quarterback sacks in 218 aerial attempts.
DEFENSIVELY, THE SOONERS had surrendered 96 points after six games. With the Nebraska game yet to be played, only high-scoring Kansas State had done much against their defense. The Wildcats scored 31 points in a losing cause, and seven of those came from a blocked punt. Otherwise, Kansas was the leading scorer against OU and the Jayhawks managed only 16 points in a 34-16 loss.
"Unbeaten Oklahoma getting it done with defense," read the headline in the Dallas Morning News last week in noting that Texas was three-and-out on their first five possessions against the Sooners and Kansas State failed to get a first down on four of its first six possessions.
But that, of course, is what you would expect from a Stoops-coached team. He came to Oklahoma hailed as something special in the way of a defensive coach.
The Sooners do it by the numbers in their defensive front, rotating five tackles and four ends. "We're playing a lot of guys, trying to keep them fresh and give them all an opportunity to play," said co-defensive coordinator and associate head coach Mike Stoops, the head coach's brother and himself a former defensive coordinator at K-State.
Probable starters at the end positions are junior Corey Heinecke (6-1, 242) and senior Corey Callens (6-2, 258). The starting tackles are senior Ryan Fisher (6-1, 291) and redshirt freshman Kory Klein (6-1, 268) but look for junior Bary Holleyman (6-4, 284) to see plenty of action.
WHERE THE SOONERS really shine is at linebacker. Senior Torrence Marshall (6-2, 247), Defensive Newcomer of the Year in the Big 12 last season after transferring from Kemper Military Academy, is the wipeout man in the middle. Junior Rocky Calmus (6-2, 234), second-team All-Big 12 last season and a Butkus Award semifinalist this year, is the No. 1 backer at the weakside post. Calmus tied a school record with 22 tackles last year against Colorado and this year he returned a pass interception for a touchdown in the Texas rout. He also has forced a fumble this season and recovered three fumbles. Marshall already is threatening some of the OU records posted by former All-America Brian Bosworth.
The strongside backer is senior Roger Steffen (6-1, 223), who often is overshadowed by Marshall and Calmus. The secondary finds soph Michael Thompson (6-1, 196) and Derrick Strait (5-11, 194) at the corners, soph Roy Williams (6-0, 221) at strong safety and senior J.T. Thatcher (5-11, 217) at free safety.
Thatcher is the headliner of that group. Leading the nation in interceptions (6) after six games. Thatcher also is considered a real threat as a return man. He had a huge day in returns against Kansas State, hauling back kickoffs and returns for a total of 150 yards. One of his returns, a 93-yarder, set up an early touchdown.
OKLAHOMA IS THE ONLY member of the Big 12 that Baylor has never defeated on the football field. The Bears are 0-9 against the Sooners in a rivalry that goes back to 1901. They lost to them last year, 41-10.
The Bears came close in 1996, losing to Oklahoma at Floyd Casey Stadium by a mere 4 points (28-24). The Bears had them that day but let them get away after fumbling away a punt. Then the next season, in Dave Roberts' first year as Baylor's head man, the Bears went to Norman and lost by a mere point, 24-23, when a two-point conversion attempt failed near the end of the game.
Those two games -- and the one the following year in Waco which Oklahoma won, 28-16 -- were probably Baylor's best chances to break the Bears' Oklahoma drought. OU was down in those seasons. Now the Sooners are back on a rampage. If the Bears should beat them now, it would be an upset of monumental proportions.
WHAT WILL BE of special interest to Baylor partisans with long memories is the Hayden Fry influence on the OU staff. Fry is a former Baylor quarterback (1947-48-49-50) who became a Baylor assistant on John Bridgers' staff in 1959-60 and later became head coach at SMU and North Texas and then a coaching legend at the University of Iowa (the Hawkeyes' all-time winningest coach).
Both Bob Stoops and Mike Stoops played and coached for Fry at Iowa before joining Bill Snyder's staff at Kansas State. Snyder himself is a former Fry assistant (offensive coordinator) at Iowa. Oklahoma's current offensive coordinator Mark Mangino (also assistant head coach and offensive line coach) coached for nine years under Snyder. And Oklahoma's quarterbacks coach is Chuck Long, winner of the Maxwell and o'Brien Awards as Fry's All-America quarterback and then an assistant coach under Fry.
Old Baylor Bear Hayden Fry (honored several years ago as a Distinguished Baylor Alumnus) may not sit in personally on the Baylor-Oklahoma proceedings Saturday, but I'll bet he'll be eagerly awaiting the results.
Editor's Note: Dave Campbell's column appears in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here. For an archive of his other columns, click here.
