COMMENTARY: Why Bob Stoops is Right to Say Colin Cowherd is 'Not Thinking Properly'

Who knew noted “program guy” Bob Stoops was also a geography guy?

Stoops set the record straight this week during his weekly radio appearance on KREF’s “The Rush” with Teddy Lehman and Tyler McComas.

After Fox Sports talk box Colin Cowherd hinted that Oklahoma in the SEC would become the next Nebraska in the Big Ten — and take what looks like a permanent plunge from college football relevance — Stoops essentially informed a geographically challenged media personality and anyone else that would listen that not all flyover states are created equal.

“Those people aren’t thinking properly. Where’s Nebraska located?” Stoops said. “I heard Colin Cowherd talking about it because of recruiting, and he said, ‘Well, Oklahoma in-state, we only sign three or four guys.’ Well, we’re not just Oklahoma. All the way down into Dallas is home territory for us — as much as it is anybody else. And that’s what they’re not taking into account. Nebraska, geographically, is removed, you know, a good ways from any real strong, fertile recruiting area. We’re not. And that’s a big difference.”

There’s a lazy narrative out there that OU might be the next Nebraska.

Bob Stoops thinks it’s a terrible opinion.

He told The Rush:

“I heard Colin Cowherd talking about it because of recruiting. We’re not just Oklahoma, all the way down into Dallas is home territory for us.… pic.twitter.com/aThas2fngT
— The REF (@KREFsports) June 29, 2023

Cowherd, who swears allegiance to USC and has professed his bromance with Trojans coach Lincoln Riley, continued his anti-Sooners narrative and also exhibited a startling lack of knowledge about the Red River and the hundreds of Texans who have migrated north of the border to become college football stars in Crimson and Cream.

“Is Oklahoma going to be the second program in our adult lives that disappears?” Cowherd asked. “Number one, the state no longer produces big numbers of players. Of the Sooners’ 26 signees in their recruiting class, three are from the state of Oklahoma. That’s having to convince kids in the South, convince kids in Texas, ‘Come to us.’ ”

Stoops said it best here: Cowherd is not thinking clearly.

For more than 70 years, kids in Texas have been convinced to play for the Sooners rather than in the Lone Star State. And the reality is that while Oklahoma has produced some of the elite of the elite all-time college football players, the state has never churned out sheer volumes of talent.

A side note about this year’s class: OU signed five kids from Texas and six from Florida. Brent Venables has no problems recruiting the Lone Star State or the South. (He also signed one from Nebraska, and look at that, one from California — Los Angeles, even, a defensive guy.) That class ranked No. 4 in the nation this year.

“Secondly, they joined a tougher conference like Nebraska,” Cowherd said. “This is going to be harder. Most of those Southern kids have grown up on the SEC. Those football players want to stay with traditional SEC powers.”

This makes partial sense, but it’s not a stretch to suggest that Cowherd is really trying to connect some dots here. But he’s also missing a much larger point. Starting next year, OU will be playing in four (or five) SEC cities every year. Because of that, the Sooners have access to recruits they never did before. Venables has already recruited better defensively than Riley ever did — and those guys were recruited to play in the SEC. He’s contradicting himself.

“We fit in the SEC perfectly,” Stoops said, “and I believe it’s going to help us recruit. And I believe we’ll handle it just fine.”

As he’s been known to do since his new favorite coach finished runner-up in the Pac-12 last year while Venables’ first season was a 6-7 mudslide, Cowherd didn’t miss a chance to take a shot at Venables.

“Number three, in an offensive era, they hired a defensive coach,” Cowherd said. “And he was completely and utterly over his skis. They didn’t get the right coach. I’m just saying. I might be wrong.

“Oklahoma is a great brand. But Lincoln Riley, remember, you don’t necessarily leave a great, top-six, top-seven program, historically. Why did Lincoln Riley leave Oklahoma? Because (OU) was joining the SEC. Looked at it, looked at the Bamas and the Georgias and the LSUs and the Floridas in those states and those kids, and their leanings.

“ … You don’t think Lincoln Riley didn’t have a gut feeling, some how, some way, kind of felt Oklahoma to the SEC was going to be a hard (recruiting) pull? You’re going to Alabama and Georgia and LSU’s back yard. Welcome to SEC football.”

Again, Cowherd contradicts himself. A defensive head coach obviously is a bad fit in the SEC. Such thing would never work.

OU will have a harder time winning six straight conference championships in the SEC than Stoops and Riley did in the Big 12. No one disputes that, not even at Oklahoma. But to suggest the Sooners are headed for eternal mediocrity with little hope of winning big ever again — a drop-off like Nebraska has now endured in the Big Ten for more than a decade — seems like a reach.

Not when the Sooners are within a four-hour drive from an endless supply of Texans that has included Jerry Tubbs, Carl McAdams, Jack Mildren, Billy Sims, George Cumby, Brian Bosworth, Rickey Dixon, Adrian Peterson, Kyler Murray and so many others.

“You can’t compare the two,” Stoops said. “It’s the offseason. They’re just filling up air time.”

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