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OU-Baylor: One Big Thing

For a coaching staff hit hard by COVID, bringing Bob Stoops out of retirement wasn't a luxury, it was a necessity
John E. Hoover|
OU-Baylor: One Big Thing
OU-Baylor: One Big Thing

It doesn’t get much bigger than Bob Stoops coming back to fortify an Oklahoma coaching staff stricken with Coronavirus.

Coming off a shutdown last week that cost the Sooners a road trip to West Virginia, OU might need to play one of its final two games just to be able to qualify for the Big 12 Championship on Dec. 19. That calculus starts Saturday night against Baylor.

But OU needs to not only play — the school sent out its normal gameday media policies at just before 9 a.m. Friday, and the OU football Twitter account posted the pregame hype video, so the game seems secure — but the Sooners also need to win.

That part could get tricky on two fronts.

One, Baylor seems to be improving steadily. The Bears — runner-up to Oklahoma in last year’s Big 12 title game — are rebuilding under first-year coach Dave Aranda. He was the LSU defensive coordinator whose Tigers took apart the Sooners in the College Football Playoff last year. That rebuild has been slow (Baylor is 2-5 in league play), but has seen marked progress the last three weeks — a seven-point loss, a one-point loss and a one-point win.

Two, OU’s roster — players and coaches — continues to be affected by COVID-19. Lincoln Riley and his crew went into Friday’s rapid testing hoping for good news. (Athletic director Joe Castiglione said Thursday the program’s first two tests this week produced encouraging results, and the team supposedly has been diligent about following all the program’s COVID protocols.)

Riley revealed Tuesday that he has enlisted the help of his old boss, Bob Stoops, who spent the week getting up to speed on terminology and actually got to coach players at practice. That wasn’t a luxury — it was a necessity. Sources tell SI Sooners that defensive coordinator Alex Grinch was quarantined all week and could miss Saturday’s game.

And Grinch isn’t the only one scheduled to miss the home finale. As many as four offensive assistants — including co-offensive coordinator Cale Gundy, H-backs coach Shane Beamer and running backs coach DeMarco Murray — are expected out.

Riley said earlier in the week that OU’s graduate assistants (former OU centers Ty Darlington and Erick Wren on offense and Parker Henry and former Sooner safety Will Johnson on defense) can assist on gamedays, though participation from analysts and quality control aides is more restricted.

Bottom line: OU needs to play, needs to win — and needs all hands on deck to do both.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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