Oklahoma is at it again.
THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, where Oklahoma’s loss to Iowa State exposes Lincoln Riley and two Stoops brothers in a far-reaching conspiracy
Why did Bob Stoops really retire? These fans have an idea. This is your weekly tour of the angriest in college football internet, also stopping briefly at Michigan.
Joe Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports
By “it,” I mean losing games to double-digit underdogs, which the Sooners have now done in seven consecutive seasons. The latest installment: a 38-31 home loss to 31-point dog Iowa State on Saturday, the Cyclones’ first win against OU since 1990.
The Sooners tumbled from No. 3 in the AP Poll to 12th. They’ve gone from the inner circle of the Playoff picture to periphery. How’d Sooners fans take that?
Our first stop: the Sooners message board at LandThieves.
You’re aware that Oklahoma’s head coach is now Lincoln Riley. It is not Bob Stoops, who stepped away last summer after two decades on the job. Every indication is that Stoops left because he’d had enough of being OU’s head coach and thought the time was right to hand the reins to Riley. But one poster has another idea.
Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator is Mike Stoops, Bob’s brother. The Sooners defense has been mediocre for a while now, carried along by a consistently great offense. Calls for Bob to fire Mike were frequent during Bob’s years as head coach.
I Have A (Conspiracy) Theory...
Bob knew we weren’t winning a title with Mike’s defense.
He couldn’t bring himself to fire Mike, however.
Instead of enduring another season of blame, he handed the keys to Riley--knowing the chances of going undefeated were very low.
That way, if Mike ****ed up he wouldn’t have to flip the switch on his own brother.
Would I quit a job just to force someone else to fire my brother?
(Rhetorical question. I’m not answering it.)
The theory that Stoops retired to get away from a hard decision about his brother is not all that much of a minority view.
This postgame thread from Rivals’ Sooner Scoop board posits a similar idea:
I spent the night reviewing recent happenings at OU, and OVERthinking them...
I continue to wonder how much being saddled with his Bro’ had to do with Bob’s sudden departure ...and NOW, if Boren’s resignation plays a larger part than we realize...
I’m also questioning if yesterday’s fiasco was actually a Trick Play...If so, it worked! Coach Campbell knew, on Monday, that his starting QB was out, but didn’t announce it until Friday. Very little available info’ on back-up QB…None on third stringer…No game film…No scouting report…No in-game adjustments, which seems to be a Stoops Brother’s trait, and there you have a sure fire recipe for a major failure…
Could it be a very real possibility that somehow, The Russians are behind the entire Scenario?
And at SB Nation’s Crimson And Cream Machine:
Has anyone reached out to the other Stoops brother? WHAT DOES MARK STOOPS KNOW, AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
There’s also some worry about the ramifications of “striping the stadium,” when some Memorial Stadium sections wear crimson and others wear cream.
The Sooners went with that on Saturday and it didn’t achieve the desired effect of producing a win.
Stop “striping” the f’n stadium!!!
OU is guaranteed to lay a giant stinking turd when they do this crap. And burn those ****ing red on red unis.
Or maybe Oklahoma could take a milder step toward reform.
Can we only do this when Kansas is in Norman?
That seems like a sensible compromise.
There’s also a deeply NSFW “roll call” thread where everyone just says how they’re dealing with this devastating loss.
Some of the notable coping mechanisms:
- “I’m thinking of starting drugs ... Not sure alcohol is gonna work for this”
- “I picked a bad day to stop smoking crack.”
- “if our DC can do it on gameday, why can’t we?”
- “Hey, to top the day off, my wife is in the other room watching romcoms and griping at me about my diet, and I lost 12 pounds in the past 3 weeks. She is also a NYer and doesn’t get up for this. My stepson is, but he is working as a DJ at a radio station in NJ right now, and has no idea what happened. He said ‘I think I will get some more hours in since we are playing ISU at home this week.’”
- “Anyone know a good place to bury a body? Asking for a friend.”
Glad to see everything’s fine.
R/Sooners was basically just a Fire Mike Stoops battleground.
“YOU HAVENT MADE A GOOD ALBUM SINCE ROLL THE BONES,” one thread reads.
Another says the Sooners have now achieved MEME STATUS:
It’s sad. Team had a bye week to prep for a game they were predicted to win by 5 touchdowns, even in light of the fact they barely squeaked by Baylor 2 weeks prior. And what happens? They lose it.
Playoff hopes are gone and the team has meme status for the rest of the season.
That and Riley’s honeymoon period is definitely over. Out of his last two games, both of which should have been easy wins, Riley barely won one and lost the other at home to a team Stoops never lost to.
I’m sure Texas is smelling blood after today. They’re going to come after us like animals next week, and in its current state, this team won’t be able to handle it.
I’m now going to look at Mike Stoops’ Twitter mentions.
People have been unsparing.
(That’s gonna be a lot of petitions.)
Too far.
The Fire Mike Stoops train is also rolling furiously down the tracks on Facebook. I’ve never seen an outburst quite this strong for a coordinator firing.
Once you’ve gone after the strength coach, you’ve passed the point of no return.
Oklahoma wore all red, which it never does.
Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
This guy has been through an almost unimaginable hell:
My condolences.
Also:
Finally, let’s take a quick look at Michigan internet, after the Wolverines lost yet again as a favorite to Michigan State.
A Redditor at r/MichiganWolverines saw John O’Korn throw a trio of interceptions and started feeling things for former QB Jake Rudock:
I’m not sure what’s more brutal toward Michigan’s offensive line: the joke here or the first response to it at the bottom:
And someone thought in serious detail about Michigan’s similarities to Jay Gatsby.
As I write this, fighting back the urge to puke from last night’s drinking binder, from the corner of my eye, I see a book at the edge of my desk. That damn book. I’ve written a ton about it the last semester for college. I’m sick of it, but The Great Gatsby is consuming my life so I must share the burden with you.
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year receeds before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, strech our arms further... And one fine morning-”
A lot has changed over the course of just a few years. Juggling school, work, and two children, things don’t get much more hectic. Life has a way of shuffling your priorities for you, against your will. However, amidst the pressure of everyday life, in the forefront of a country in social turmoil, one thing remains a constant: Michigan. I make time for it. I forcably shove it into the spinning cogs that move my life forward every Saturday. Everything stops for three hours. The chaos around me is nullified to a dull hum in the background. I could search the very depths of my conciousness to find something that compares to this unique passion of mine, but it would be to no avail. No matter the consequences. I’m still here.
The Great Gatsby, if you’re familiar with it, is a tragedy. F. Scott Fitzgerald writes of our passion to recapture the past. To re-create the moments lost in memory. As it goes, this passion is ultimately damaging. No matter how hard you try to grab the ever-fleeting past, you’ll walk away defeated and demoralized.
Michigan football seems to be doing the same, stuck in the realm of past glory. We as fans push this notion all the time. Perhaps if we merely accept that things are different now, we can truely move forward to capture a new essance of glory.
Forget about yesterday, forget about capturing the past. Focus upon today, where challenges await in the future. And put some damn steel in your spine.
“So we beat on”.
And so Michigan beats on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into a tie with Maryland for fourth place in the Big Ten East.
