Stoops: A great coach, or just a great recruiter?
I've heard all the talk about USC being world beaters, and the new dynasty. And they may be. But in my opinion, given 3 weeks to prepare, Carroll simply out-prepared an unprepared Stoops team and had his team ready to play. Talent on both sides was a wash. USC has had maybe a slight edge over OU in recruiting, but it's not much. Both get 3 or more 5 star players per year.
People seem to have forgotten that USC did not beat everybody like a drum this season. They beat Va Tech by 11 (24-13), Stanford by only 3 (31-28), Cal by 6 (23-17), Oregon State by 8 (28-20), and UCLA by 5 (29-24). None of those teams have the caliber of athletes that Oklahoma has, nor USC for that matter, but all of them gave USC a much better game than Oklahoma did. Cal and Stanford had them beat.
On the other side of the fence, Oklahoma let T A&M go up on them 28-0. Unprepared. They woke up and took over the game because A&M could not match their speed. Last year, they lost big to LSU with equal talent on both sides. Everybody talks about Stoops as if he’s a football god, and I think it’s just that he can recruit the players to beat the vast majority of teams they play.
I guess the genesis of my argument stems from the bashing of Mike Shula for not being a good X's and O's coach. And I don't get that. The South Carolina and Arkansas games are the ones I feel we let slip away, but we were reeling from having lost Croyle, then having lost Guillon. So I can understand it. Neither of those guys had any experience due to Croyle needing all the snaps to learn the offense. And even thought the injuries continued, to the point that every team who beat us after that had superior talent and depth, we were still in every one of those losses down to the end of the game. UT, LSU, AU, and Minn, had us far outmatched at more than 1 position. Given that fact, and given what we saw last night, I think people are being way too critical of Mike Shula at this point.
Depth AND experience is what we need. Both take time. We’re only now in a situation to build depth, since this will be the first year with a full complement of scholarships. But that depth, in many cases, will be freshmen and redshirt freshmen this fall. Shula should have 2 more seasons in order to effectively evaluate him.
I've heard all the talk about USC being world beaters, and the new dynasty. And they may be. But in my opinion, given 3 weeks to prepare, Carroll simply out-prepared an unprepared Stoops team and had his team ready to play. Talent on both sides was a wash. USC has had maybe a slight edge over OU in recruiting, but it's not much. Both get 3 or more 5 star players per year.
People seem to have forgotten that USC did not beat everybody like a drum this season. They beat Va Tech by 11 (24-13), Stanford by only 3 (31-28), Cal by 6 (23-17), Oregon State by 8 (28-20), and UCLA by 5 (29-24). None of those teams have the caliber of athletes that Oklahoma has, nor USC for that matter, but all of them gave USC a much better game than Oklahoma did. Cal and Stanford had them beat.
On the other side of the fence, Oklahoma let T A&M go up on them 28-0. Unprepared. They woke up and took over the game because A&M could not match their speed. Last year, they lost big to LSU with equal talent on both sides. Everybody talks about Stoops as if he’s a football god, and I think it’s just that he can recruit the players to beat the vast majority of teams they play.
I guess the genesis of my argument stems from the bashing of Mike Shula for not being a good X's and O's coach. And I don't get that. The South Carolina and Arkansas games are the ones I feel we let slip away, but we were reeling from having lost Croyle, then having lost Guillon. So I can understand it. Neither of those guys had any experience due to Croyle needing all the snaps to learn the offense. And even thought the injuries continued, to the point that every team who beat us after that had superior talent and depth, we were still in every one of those losses down to the end of the game. UT, LSU, AU, and Minn, had us far outmatched at more than 1 position. Given that fact, and given what we saw last night, I think people are being way too critical of Mike Shula at this point.
Depth AND experience is what we need. Both take time. We’re only now in a situation to build depth, since this will be the first year with a full complement of scholarships. But that depth, in many cases, will be freshmen and redshirt freshmen this fall. Shula should have 2 more seasons in order to effectively evaluate him.
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