SOONERGUYS Blog

About the time we get all warm and fuzzy over the 27-0 Bedlam trouncing and then these internet trolls roll out the “Stoops is going to Notre Dame” rumor.

They had him flying to South Bend on Sunday. Never mind he was in Norman taping his game replay show. Are these the same folks who had Stoops going to the Atlanta Falcons a couple of years ago? Or to Florida before that?

Stoops said this weekend he was not interviewing for the Notre Dame job and neither he nor his agent have been contacted. Not even Dean “there is a 67 percent chance” Blevins thinks Stoops would entertain the Notre Dame job.

I am sure there are a number of rust belt Catholics who think Stoops’ roots at Youngstown, Ohio’s Cardinal Mooney High School (that’s “Cardinal” meaning Youngstown native Edward Aloysius Mooney, the Roman Catholic Cardinal from 1946-1958, not the color “Cardinal”, ala Leland Stanford Junior University) will lure him to the Golden Dome.

These Irish have obviously been kissing the Blarney Stone.

Notre Dame has become a dead-end job. It’s where promising coaches go to ruin their careers. Just ask Gerry Faust, Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham and soon Charlie Weis.

For Stoops it’s not just a lateral move, it’s a step backward. And he knows it.

For those awash in the old “storied” Irish program of yesteryear, here are some facts:

At the end of the 2008 season Notre Dame had the third most wins in NCAA history (831). That’s pretty good, thanks to Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy (from your great grandparents’ generation). But the Fighting Irish record in the last 13 years is 91-68. That’s poor enough to get their two coaches fired and a third, Charlie Weis, about to be booted. Even including Lou Holtz’s 11 winning years from 1986-1996, the Irish are 221-124-2 since 1980. That’s a 63 percent winning record. Ho hum.

How does that compare to Oklahoma? During the same time the Sooners have won 251 games and have a winning percentage of 70 percent. That’s including the Gibbs, Blake and Schnellenberger disaster years.

Notre Dame has not won a national championship since 1988. And, you think Oklahoma’s bowl record is bad? The Irish have lost nine out of their last 10 bowl games, none of them being BCS Championship games. Their win in the Hawaii Bowl last year was the first bowl victory in 15 years.

Frankly, the college recruiting game has passed Notre Dame by. Next year they will have no four or five star recruits on their team. The idea they are a national university may sound good, but it means the school has no specific recruiting base from which they can draw to provide a consistent level of talent.

Texas and Oklahoma can always count on a solid recruiting base from the ripe state of Texas. Florida and even Alabama can always get recruits from their base in Florida and the Gulf Coast. Louisiana is a hot bed of talent for LSU. And on the west coast USC and the Pac-10 schools need look no further than California. In the Midwest, Ohio State University and Penn State have strong recruiting bases there and in the Northeast.

That doesn’t leave much for ol’ Notre Dame. Which means it will be important for the next Irish coach to already have a foothold in a regional recruiting area. That makes their best candidate for the next ND coach to be Brian Kelly, an Irish Catholic guy who has Cincinnati in the Top 5, coached two Division I-AA championships and is a defensive master mind. He’s successfully recruited Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

But here’s another reason Stoops won’t go to Notre Dame: The Irish ended the Sooners’ NCAA record winning streak of 47 games in 1957. Coincidentally, Oklahoma’s loss to Notre Dame to open the 1953 season was the last loss before the streak. We don’t like them. At all.

It would be like a Sooner going to coach the rival Texas Longhorns. Oh, wait….

Coach Stoops’ press conference could have been conducted at Norman Regional today, given that much focus was on the injury situation for QB Sam Bradford and TE Jermaine Gresham.

He said Bradford’s AC sprain can heal enough to put him back on the field in two to four weeks.  Good news, under the circumstances.

Stoops also announced that TE Jermaine Gresham’s career at OU hinges on the results of this afternoon’s arthroscopic surgery, to determine whether the cause of his knee locking up is a chipped meniscus, or cartilage damage that will require stitching.  If the former, he will be back on the field in a couple of weeks.  If it is the latter, then surgery will lead to a five-month recovery and Gresham’s next play will be in an NFL uniform (hopefully, for him).

“It’s pure speculation now because none of that shows through three different MRIs. Until they (orthopedic surgeons) get in there you won’t be able to tell.”

Stoops’ report indicates that KOCO’s report this morning that Gresham is definitely out for the season was premature.  Imagine that — a sports reporter jumping the gun (in true Sooner land run fashion).

Meanwhile, all those penalties against offensive linemen during the BYU game will apparently lead to some personnel changes.  Stoops would not identify who might that be, but every Sooner fan knows that Senior OL Brian Simmons and Junior OL Cory Brandon got flagged for more procedure and holding penalties than most teams get in a season.

“It’s still college ball, I’m not going to call anyone out. But there will be changes,” Stoops said.

Also, full back turned tight end turned center Brody Eldridge will get moved back to tight end, in light of Gresham’s standing.  He’s valuable at the edge of the line because of his blocking ability to create creases for Oklahoma’s running backs, whose play becomes increasingly more important during Bradford’s absence. 

Still, juggling around players at different positions won’t solve some of the problems suffered by Oklahoma last Saturday in Arlington.  The Sooners must re-assess their focus and understand that just wearing the jersey doesn’t make for a championship team.

“Our team can’t overlook anybody if we can’t play correctly and play smart,” Stoops said. 

“We have to play more responsible and disciplined if we are to beat anyone.”

Coach Bob Stoops may be super-coach, but when it comes to his BlackBerry – don’t ask him.

The Oklahoma coach committed a secondary NCAA violation because he didn’t know the difference between a text message and an email sent from his BlackBerry device, according to documents the Associated Press obtained from an NCAA compliance report.

That’s understandable. I don’t know squat about BlackBerries, except they make wonderful cobblers.

Stoops shouldn’t feel bad. At least he’s not geographically challenged. According to the AP report, assistant Coach Jackie Shipp committed a minor violation by taking a recruit to a restaurant he thought was on campus. My guess it was the Louie’s on campus corner. Or the lavish new O’Connells. Yeah, boy.

This shows how silly the NCAA rules are.

An email is permitted, but a text message (which is delivered to the recipient in exactly the same way) is not? Again, I’m no Bill Gates but even I know how ridiculous this is.

A catered dinner at the student union is OK, but the chips and salsa at Louie’s is an impermissible NCAA violation? Yes. And, once a recruit has the blacked chicken sandwich, well, that creates an unfair recruiting advantage for the Sooners. No wonder we’re on probation.  —Mike