NEVER A DOUBT

Oklahoma\'s rise to the top of the college football world may have surprised some people, but not head coach Bob Stoops.
by: Richard Scott
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An upset? Don't call Oklahoma's national championship or its Orange Bowl victory over Florida State an upset. An upset is when a team that shouldn't win beats a team that should win, and that wasn't the case when the Sooners completed their undefeated season by beating the Seminoles 13-2.

So what if Florida State was favored to win by nearly two touchdowns? So what if the Seminoles were playing for the national championship for the third time in four years? So what if the Sooners were one of the youngest teams in the Big 12, and just one year removed from a 4-8 season that ended with four defeats by a combined score of 176-28?

So what if Oklahoma's glorious football tradition seemed more like a ghost than a heritage? So what if no one outside the Oklahoma football program expected the Sooners to be undefeated, let alone playing for the national championship? Oklahoma arrived in Miami prepared to win, and then went out and played to win.

This was no miracle, no fluke, no bolt from the blue. This was the result of a major overhaul, a remarkable transformation of body, mind and spirit. This was the plan when Bob Stoops became Oklahoma's head coach in December 1999. It was a plan years in the making, with a foundation built on a lifetime of football and life lessons that started with his father, Ron Sr., a long-time prep football coach. From his own all-Big Ten football career at Iowa to his coaching stops at Iowa, Kansas State and Florida, Stoops formulated a plan to build an entire football program from the ground up.

And the ground is exactly where he started at Oklahoma, taking over a program that had crashed to earth and hit rock bottom with an embarrassing (by Sooner standards) 12-22 record over the three previous seasons.

Despite the program's moribund status, Stoops adopted the current Sooners as his own instead of waiting to bring in his own players down the line. When someone asked him early on how long it would take to turn the program and bring in his own players, Stoops shot back, "THESE are my players."

"We had to change our perception of ourselves and raising our expectations for our program and what we thought of ourselves as players, as individuals and members of a team," Stoops says. "Those were the biggest things we had to change, develop and raise. On top of that, we had to develop the work habits and discipline to accomplish those expectations. We had to earn the right to have high expectations, to think of ourselves that way. Everyone wants to believe and think of themselves in a great way and have high expectations, but they don't always work hard enough to deserve to think that way. So we put the two of them together, expecting more and earning the right to think that way.

"I didn't see any of that when we got here. I saw a group of kids that weren't very confident, that didn't expect a lot, that the perception among the town, the university and the media and even among themselves was not at all good, and all that needed to change. As soon as we began our first (offseason) workouts, I could see they weren't functioning like a Big 12 team should."

That was especially true when it came to offseason conditioning. It was bad enough that assistant coach Brent Venables, a Kansas State linebacker in 1991-92, was the strongest lifter in the program, but, as Stoops recalls, "We had about 20 players running to the trashcans (to vomit) just in our warm-ups. We weren't even into the running yet and they were falling out." By the time those workouts had begun, Stoops had completed his staff with the kind of coaches Oklahoma needed at that point and time. There is a lot to be said for the wisdom and experience of veteran assistants who've been around the block several times, but there's also something to be said for aggressive, young, energetic assistants ready to take on the world. Both have their place, and for Stoop's plans, he needed hungry assistants who weren't afraid of the challenge.

First, he hired his brother, 37-year-old Mike, along with 28-year-old Brent Venables away from K-State to co-coordinate the defense. Then, he hired 38-year-old Kentucky assistant Mike Leach, who had coached against Stoops in the SEC. He brought 42-year-old Mark Mangino from K-State as his assistant head coach and offensive line coach. He hired 27-year-old Cale Gundy, a former OU quarterback, to coach the running backs; 28-year-old Steve Spurrier Jr. and his obvious passing pedigree to coach the receivers; 38-year-old Jonathan Hayes, a 12-year NFL veteran, to coach the tight ends; and

38-year-old Jackie Shipp, a former Sooner player, to coach the defensive line. The old guy on the staff was 48-year-old Bobby Jack Wright, a former Texas assistant whose youthful energy made him a good fit for the staff. Another important hire was the decision to bring in Jerry Schmidt as the team's director of sports enhancement, better known as the strength and conditioning coach who builds the players that coaches coach. Schmidt, with a resume that included stops at Nebraska, Florida, Notre Dame and Oklahoma State, proved to be another outstanding fit for an aggressive young staff. Stoops hired his coaches and allowed them to coach their positions, but he also kept a watchful eye on their schedules, and work habits and relationships with the players. With a young family of his own at home and several assistants with young children of their own, Stoops made sure his coaches went home when the work was done, proving that coaches don't have to spend the night in their offices to be successful.

"The relationships between our coaches and players has been a big factor in what we've done," Stoops said. "Our coaches and players together know how to have a lot of fun while getting a lot done. We're all coaching in a positive, confident manner that the players all enjoy and we don't beat ourselves up. We get our work done and try to work hard and smart while we're here and focus on what we want to do with our players.

"I want our coaches to be excited, fresh and happy to go to practice, because I think the players pick up on that. They see their coaches are excited to be at practice and not dragging."

In addition to the personal qualities and experience of his coaches, Stoops also hired with schemes in mind. He wanted the same press-man defense he had run at K-State and Florida, and wide-open, pass-oriented offense that would spread the field and stretch the defense. Both schemes required an aggressive attitude that Stoops wanted his team to carry into every practice, every game, every play.

"Schemes are important, so first, I wanted to make sure we'd have a great defense to give us a chance to compete and win a championship," Stoops said. "By hiring Mike and Brent and running a system I was familiar with and had a hand in developing, I felt strongly that we'd have a great defense because of the track record of the coaches and the system.

"On top of that, I felt like offensively we'd have a chance to score more points and move the ball more effectively and make a bigger impact by being able to throw instead of trying to beat up everyone. I also felt like if we could throw the ball, it would help us improve our running game as we developed players, got stronger and recruited to it. Plus, we realized no one else in the Big 12 was doing it, so it would be different and harder for people to prepare for.

"Another reason I chose that offense is because quarterback wasn't a strong position for us when we arrived, and I believed that system would help us recruit great quarterbacks."

Oklahoma stumbled upon the quarterback it needed almost immediately, convincing a little-known juco quarterback to forgo his previous commitment to Utah State for a chance to play in the big time. That quarterback turned out to be Josh Heupel, who went to rewrite the Oklahoma record book and finish second in last year's Heisman Trophy voting.

But before Heupel could ever throw a pass in a game for the Sooners, the son of a coach also bought into the plan and proved to be the kind of leader (on and off the field) that every coach prays for.

In his book, "The Road to Glory: My path of faith to Oklahoma and a national championship," Heupel writes, "Just a couple of months after arriving at Oklahoma in the spring of 1999, I was elected a team captain. That's the highest honor that I've ever received in team sports. To be a leader you have to be both a vocal and non-vocal leader. You have to be the hardest worker. You have to be the first one in and the last one to leave.

"You have to be selfless instead of selfish. You have to genuinely care about the people around, and your teammates have to see that and feel that. Every ounce of energy you have has to go to ensure success for yourself and your teammates. When they know you've done everything humanly possible to make them successful, they will have complete confidence in you, which will allow them to play at the highest level.

"Confidence comes from hard work. Knowing that you've paid the price to be successful, that you've done everything possible to make sure things go the way you envisioned them, is important."

That first spring, Heupel picked up the system quickly and the Sooners seemed to throw more passes in a month than the program had seen in the entire Barry Switzer era. Also, running backs were moved to receiver and the secondary, defensive linemen were moved to the offensive line and the coaches worked to put the right players in the right places. More important, Stoops saw that his players were eager to change and learn.

"It was immediate," Stoops says. "They saw that it was going to be an exciting opportunity to make good things happen. And let's face it, they hadn't had a whole lot of success before that, so there wasn't anyone fighting it."

That summer, Stoops saw the seeds of change start to take root in the offseason workouts of his players.

"I could see commitment in the way the players worked and stepped it up and trained to prepare for the season," Stoops said. "That carried over into double sessions (two-a-days) and into the season."

The Sooners opened with three wins, followed with losses to Notre Dame and Texas and won four of their next six games to finish 7-4 and earn a trip to the Independence Bowl. Along the way, the Sooners finished eighth in the nation in scoring, ninth in passing, 11th in total offense and brought an air of excitement and expectation back to the program. The 1999 season wasn't exactly a trip back in time to OU's glory days of the wishbone, but it was a step in the right direction, and everyone involved in the program knew it. "We had led in every single game we had played and lost some big leads and lost some games that if we had been a little better we could have won," Stoops says. "But I also think we had shown we were doing the right things and the players saw that, even in those losses, that we could win those games if we could just be a little smarter and eliminate a few mistakes and make a few more plays when we have the opportunity to.

"That's what we learned this year: how to take the next step, how to be a little better, how to not make a mistake, how to complete a play that makes the difference in winning a game. Our players started seeing that the year before and they had confidence that we were doing the right things and we could win those games. That carried over to this past season."

When the 2000 season started, the Sooners opened with four wins over lesser opponents, and still had a lot to prove as they entered a three-game stretch against three top-10 teams. They made a loud, dramatic statement in the first game, pummeling 10th-ranked Texas 63-14 in Dallas, and then followed up on that win the next week by winning 41-31 at second-ranked Kansas State. Two weeks later, following an open date that only increased the spotlight's glare on Oklahoma's resurgence, the Sooners beat top-ranked Nebraska 31-14 and took over the top spot in the national polls.

The Sooners whipped Baylor 56-7 the next week, but still had plenty of obstacles to overcome before they could win the Big 12 South Division, let alone play for a national championship. On November 11, Oklahoma barely escaped College Station with their record and ranking intact, coming through with a dramatic comeback to beat Texas A&M 35-31. A 27-13 win over Texas Tech and a 12-7 near-miss win over Oklahoma State led skeptics to believe the Sooners had already peaked, but they came back strong to beat Kansas State 27-24 in the Big 12 championship game.

Along the way, the Sooners and their new offensive coordinator, Mangino (who replaced Leach when he left to become the head coach at Texas Tech) evolved into a more effective running game and emerged as a balanced offense, capable of attacking defenses with a wide variety of plays and formations.

Even more important, the Sooners learned how to play every snap like it was the most important play of the game. It's safe to say that when Oklahoma was at its best last fall, the Sooners were also the most aggressive, most relentless, most urgent team in the nation.

"We lost some games and big leads (in 1999) because our players didn't know how to handle those things," Stoops said. "Let's face it: our players hadn't had many big leads against good teams, so they didn't understand what it took to win those games. But we learned from those experiences and learned to play every snap, how to complete and finish games."

Despite all that, the Sooners entered the national championship as decisive underdogs, favored to lose by as much as two touchdowns in some circles and often left out of the national championship debate that centered around Florida State and Miami. It wasn't until the Orange Bowl actually began that the Sooners were finally able to capture the attention of the Seminoles and the rest of the college football world. Once they grabbed control of the game and the spotlight, they never let up.

"I'm shocked," said FSU coach Bobby Bowden said. "They whupped us so bad. I wouldn't have thought they could do it."

Maybe Bowden didn't believe it, but the Sooners never doubted. "All year we saw it coming," cornerback Michael Thompson said. "Everyone doubted us all year,'' linebacker Torrance Marshall said. "We believed in ourselves.''

And nobody believed in the Sooners more than their coaches, who spent the entire month of December refusing to allow their players to accept the role of underdogs. While many coaches relish the underdog role and use it effectively, Stoops took the road less traveled, and it made a huge difference.

"We never used that (underdog role) as motivation," Stoops said. "That's not a factor for us and I never want our players assuming that role because I don't believe in it. I don't want our players believing they have to do anything better than what they're capable of to win, because they don't. I want our staff to be confident and positive going into a game, focusing on the reason why we should win, instead of any reasons why we shouldn't. That's what we focus on: the factors that will make a difference in winning. "That underdog stuff is for the media, it's for other people to talk about, and it's not for us to listen to. The same goes for being favored. That's not an issue for us, either. That's why you play. It comes down to who's prepared, who's ready to play and I want our players to always understand that if they just play to their potential, the way they're capable of, then we should be fine.

"For instance, before the Florida State game, I didn't want anyone in our program spending a month reading that we didn't think we were good enough to win or that we'd have to play better than we were capable of to win, because we knew that wasn't the case. We refused to accept (the underdog role). That's why we didn't have that underdog attitude. We had an attitude that we were going to win the game. We were extremely confident going into that game, as confident as any game we played all year and we were in total control the whole way. You could see our confidence."

That confidence carried over to the offseason workouts and spring practices and gives Stoops every reason to think his team will not be satisfied after winning one national championship. Sure, the Sooners still have to find a replacement for Heupel, Marshall and some key linemen on both sides of the ball, but they also return a strong nucleus of experienced players who have yet to show any signs of slowing down.

For Stoops and the Sooners, it's all about attitude and earning the right to be confident. That's where they started two years ago, and that's where they're going as they approach the 2001 season.

"People wonder how we're going to stay motivated, but I don't," Stoops said. "It's not like we've had five or six outstanding seasons in a row around here. These kids haven't had a lot of positives until the last couple of years, and now that they've had a taste of it they like it. So we're more hungry now than we were before. "We've been lifting and running and working out and we're so much further ahead of where we were a year ago - it's not even close. We're going to be a stronger, better football team next year, and whether that results in more wins or not, that just depends on how everyone else progresses and whether or not we can remain consistent throughout the season, but going into the season we'll be a better team than we were a year ago.

"People forget that we had a young team last season - 23 freshmen and sophomores in our two-deep (depth chart). Plus, we had so many big games the last two years and that should help us be tougher, more mature, more confident. All of that helps you going into the next season."

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