I had just gotten done writing about Bob Stoops saying something silly, but here we have Bob Stoops saying something else different on a totally different topic. Summer of Stoops!
Bob Stoops is okay with Mike Gundy restricting Wes Lunt’s transfer options
Bob Stoops didn’t want to call out Mike Gundy when asked about the major restrictions on Wes Lunt’s transfer, but he also just went ahead and said college athletes shouldn’t have freedom to transfer as they see fit.
Bob Stoops was asked about the intense restrictions rival coach Mike Gundy placed on quarterback Wes Lunt, preventing him from transferring from a whopping 37 schools. Stoops supported Gundy’s move, saying that if coaches want to heavily restrict their players options if they decide to transfer, they should be allowed to. From ESPN:
“I support every coach and I support Mike Gundy in every way if they have their issues because all situations are different. I mean that sincerely. Mike’s doing the right thing in his case,” Stoops said at an Oklahoma caravan event on Wednesday night. “A guy says, ‘I’m coming to you’ and you get a running back, and then all of a sudden you don’t have a running back. He leaves. That doesn’t leave your program in a great spot, right? So, I’m totally in agreement.“The money quote:
“It isn’t right that they can just do what they want to do,” Stoops said. “It isn’t good. I don’t believe in it.“He went on to elaborate on his viewpoint, that players shouldn’t be allowed to transfer freely even in the case of a coaching change, and that he feels that the limits on how many players coaches can sign should restrict players’ abilities to get out of those commitments.
Look, it’s not like I have a vendetta against Bob Stoops! He just keeps going out and saying things that are either factually or, in this case, ethically wrong, and we have to say something.
While it’s technically true that nobody forces prospective college athletes to sign letters of intent, but there’s not much of a way around it for kids who are talented enough to play college football and would like to use that talent to somehow earn money later in life, or at least get a degree. And once they decide to do that thing that’s practically a necessity, all the power goes into the hands of coaches like Stoops, who are well-compensated monetarily, instead of college students who get paid in academic opportunity.
In Stoops’ defense, he says he’s never used his power to restrict players, which is good. And in this case he’s just trying not to call out his fellow members of the coaching profession, but, it ends up as another person preaching for the disempowerment of college athletes who don’t have that much power in the first place.
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