Are Bob Stoops & Mack Brown held to different standards

Every Texas fan I talk to (I live in Dallas) is livid. They are very interested to see how this season plays out. If another monumental failure occurs then they will be out for blood…

I think what is being lost though is context. In the end Brown was coming off a MNC run and very well may have won had it not been for the injury to McCoy. Obviously he was doing something right just a few months before.

After the debacle much of the blame was laid at the feet of Greg Davis (rightly so, in my opinion) and he gets the boot. In the process Brown’s CEO hypothesis gets shot all to hell. He revamps his staff and starts anew.

He basically short circuited the argument. He in essence admitted he screwed up but at the same time showed that he already had a plan in motion to set things right. Making drastic changes is a far cry from maintain the status quo. If he had done that than i believe Texas fans would still be up in arms.

In my mind if roles were reversed i would have acted in much the same manner as the Texas fans. Bob brought us back form irrelevance so far be it from me to say he can’t do it twice. Mack is getting his second chance, something he has earned and as much grumbling as we Sooners do i still believe we would do the same for Bob (if not, it really is sad commentary on us).

With that said, here’s to Mack going down in flames and giving us plenty to laugh about over the usually ho-hum spring and summer months =]

[raises a glass]

…I think I end up disagreeing with you, but not by much.

OU and saxeT are, let’s face it, spoiled. We are spoiled because we’re both elite, premiere, top-notch, cream-of-the-crop, Big Boy programs. In the last Ten years, how many programs have been on the same level of success as these two? I would count Florida, Alabama (and that only recently), Auburn, LSU (I really wish I didn’t have to include them), USC, Ohio State, possibly Oregon, and (honestly!) Boise State. And of this list, how many have had the same head coach over that ten-year period?

It was my impression that most UT fans that I know were more butt-hurt over their season last year than we would have been. I think that they seemed even more angry about Greg Davis during their off year than we were about Kevin Wilson during ours, although we definitely had some. (Interesting side note: both offensive coordinators had just prior to that taken their teams to national championship games. But I tend to think fans have short term memories.)

Also, I think the media generally does a good job of giving both programs the love that they deserve. Yeah, just about every media outlet pays at least one “That Guy,” whose job it is to talk smack that usually accomplishes its goal of whipping fans into a frenzy, thereby driving up web site hits or otherwise generating ad revenue.

(I think there is a conflict of interest for ESPN and Fox News, which serve as both carriers of content and “journalistic” reporting of the content they carry, but that’s a different issue.)

I’ll be honest, I lived in Norman from 1988 through 1999 — the exact years between Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops. So from my perspective, the only thing that could make me say that Stoops needs to go would be major NCAA violations or raping small farm animals. I could even take three or four losing seasons in a row.

But the thing that I love about Bob is that if he had three or four losing seasons in a row, he’d probably resign on his own account, and not because of any grumblings made by fans, boosters, or administrators.

We’ve got one heckuva football coach.

So yeah, I think that saxeT fans are generally whinier than ours, I think the media gives us about equal love, and I’m not too worried about whether we’re treated differently. I don’t think we’ve got much to complain about.

When Bob has never gone 5-7 ad embarrassed OUr program.

its all about the fans, in my opinion OU has more die hard football crazy fans/alums and UT has more T-Shirt/bandwagon fans and entitled/non-interested alums. (If I’m generalizing about yall’s fan base let me know but this seems to be the case) UT routinely sells out DKR when times are good but for over 100K it never gets as loud as Norman or College Station, heck Lubbock gives us a run for our money, but why?

Its not that the acoustics are any worse, or that the humidity or wind hamper crowd noise, its that “good” tickets are expensive and only the rich can really afford them (and the student section needs to be changed but that’s a topic for another day). My 80 years old grandparents on the 50 don’t yell or scream, and neither do most other people around them with a few BIG moment 3rd downs in close games. They feel like they paid their money so they just want to enjoy themselves and deserve to simply be able to watch.

I feel that this exemplifies why Mack has had a “pass” for the last few years. The T-shirt fans just jump on another team, the rich alums just stop coming to the games (did yall see OSU this year) and thus paying attention, and the students simply go the frat parties/6th/Cain and Able’s instead of going to the games.

I also think the timing of Brown/Stoops has a lot to do with it, Bob won his first one in 2001 and so yall’s expectations have been higher, longer; while it took Mack until 2006 to grab his first so our expectations haven’t been as high as long and thus we (and the media) give Mack a bit more slack. Still 2 Big 12 Championships is bad, no matter how you slice it.

if you’re going to ask a question, you might want to add a question mark, especially in that title :-)

Stoops receives more criticism not only because he has made it to the BCSCG four times and lost three times, but because his BCS record overall is unimpressive. It took a game against a barely competent UConn for OU to break that losing BCS losing streak.

The big difference between Bob and Mack, as I have said before, is that when Bob has a ‘bad’ season, they go 8-5 and win a bowl. When Mack has a ‘bad’ season, they go 5-7 with the team obviously quitting during games. The one thing I will say about Stoops is that his teams don’t quit when the going gets tough during a season.

As for the BCSCGs OU has played in, I think only the USC game was really bad, and OU was in it early, it just spun out of control. Bad playcalling on one drive cost you the ‘03 game, and too many turnovers and your defense tiring cost you the ’08 game. The ’08 team was the best one I think Stoops has ever had, and it was a shame he wasn’t able to pull that one off.

I do think the media gives Mack a pass because he is more of a salesman and is much chummier with them than Stoops is, and they like people who are accessible and make their jobs easier. Mack is also under less pressure than Stoops because Bob has the interests of a whole state behind him (minus OSU and maybe Tulsa fans). In Texas, texas is one of many D-IA programs (think we’re up to 13 now with the additions of Lamar, texas-San Antonio, and Southwest Texas coming up), so loyalties are diluted among the population a little more. And I should point out that the vast majority of journalists in texas are t-sips, and they’re anxious to blow their own horn, and not criticize Mack.