Exclusive Interview with Bob Stoops

Joe Huff sat down this weekend with LandThief football coach Bob Stoops in San Antonio to swat a few mosquitoes and talk Sooner football for the upcoming year.

LT: Coach, thanks for taking time out of your schedule. Did you and Carol stop at the outlet malls in Hillsboro or San Marcos on your way down?

BS: No, we own some other commercial real estate, but we’re down on retail properties right now. We believe the market’s saturated and due a correction. We’re big on tax free munis right now.

LT: On to the football questions. A recent article on sportsline.com - by a writer fired for lying on his resume, so he knows cheating when he sees it - rated OU as the third dirtiest football program, trailing Auburn at #2 and Alabama in the top spot. Do you have any comment?

BS: We have a great tradition here at the University. We have traditions in winning football games and receiving NCAA sanctions. That being said, I don’t pay any attention to preseason polls. I do know that we’ve practiced in a great way this spring and we’ll be ready for the regular season. You have to tip your hat to Auburn and Alabama…the SEC is one of the top conferences in the country…Auburn has had a lot of success lately with reduced academics for their players, and Alabama has a long standing tradition of cold hard cash outlays to their student athletes. We believe we’ve go a more balanced attack here at the U of O…you’ve got the Phys Ed degree track balanced with a new telecommuting program for our student-athlete-employees. We believe it is one of the first of its kind in the country - that anyone will admit to. Is that a recorder?

LT: Uh, no. It’s the new iPhone. Coach, there’s a lot of speculation as to who you’re QB will be this year. Do you have any concerns there?

BS: Joe, I have complete confidence in our team. Ya know, it’s not like we’ve had a lot of success with the big name, hot shot QB recruits. Hunter Wall had one great fake punt (and that was all my play calling), Brent Rawls wasn’t exactly a home run, and Tommy Grady has worked his way into the third string QB spot in the post Urban Meyer era Utah Utes. I’m not even mentioning the best little car salesman in East Texas. I’ll take my chances with any of these three guys handing it off to Allen Patrick and DeMarco Murray. We might resurrect the tight end reverse with Jermaine Gresham to mix it up a little. It’s been 20 years since we’ve used that little nugget in the playbook.

LT: Do you think the passing game will develop this year as the season progresses?

BS: Sure. I’m expecting to switch from a direct handoff to more of a toss back to the tailback later in the year as the players get more quality reps. By the time the bowl game comes around we will put some more wrinkles into our package, like some play action passes and maybe a fade route or two to Malcolm Kelly.

LT: Thanks for your time, coach.

BS: Sure, I need to get back to Malcolm Kelly. I want to see if we can convince him to work on his blocking this year, return for his senior season when we should be able to put pass plays back into our offense.