Bob Stoops wants to coach for at least another decade

Oklahoma Sooners head football coach Bob Stoops has been with Oklahoma since 1999, but wants to keep coaching at a high level for at least the next decade or so.

Bob Stoops has been a dominant head coach for the Oklahoma Sooners since taking over for the ineffective John Blake in 1999. Stoops has led Oklahoma to nine Big 12 Championships, the 2000 National Championship, and the second annual College Football Playoff in 2015.

With a 179-46 record and arguably the best team in the Big 12 in 2016, Stoops wants to continue coaching in Norman for at least the next decade. The 55-year-old Stoops told everyone at Big 12 Media Days “Hopefully I’ll go another 10 years or so.”

Stoops has already coached in and won more games than any head coach in Oklahoma’s impressive history. However, Stoops still trails both Barry Switzer and Bud Wilkinson in the National Championships department. Stoops needs two more national titles to match both Switzer and Wilkinson, so perhaps that is what is driving Stoops to potentially want to coach in Norman until age 65.

Though Stoops may have the energy and the recruiting chops necessary to field a championship caliber program at a blue-blood football institution like Oklahoma, one thing that seems to be in the way of Stoops either matching or eclipsing Switzer and Wilkinson in Oklahoma football lore is that the Big 12 currently doesn’t have a conference championship.

This will likely be a major roadblock for a Big 12 school to get into the College Football Playoff, as the four other Power 5 conferences have the deciding title game at a neutral site location.

Perhaps the Big 12 will expand to 12 or 14 games before Stoops is done coaching the Sooners on the gridiron? If Stoops has the energy to win at a high level at a historical football powerhouse like Oklahoma, why wouldn’t he want to coach there for another “10 or so years?”

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