Former college and NFL coach Steve Spurrier may have put it the best, when he described the announcement of his friend and former assistant’s retirement as “a surprise, but not a complete shock.”
Eighteen years as a college football head coach at the same institution is extremely rare, particularly in this day and age when there is so much pressure on head coaches to win. With the exception of Bill Snyder at Kansas State, who has coached the Wildcats in two separate stints for a total of 25 seasons, Stoops’ 18 years on the Oklahoma sidelines was the longest at one school among active Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches.