Even a season and a half into a shockingly sudden retirement, with a here-and-there-beard to show for it, the fire still flickers in Bob Stoops. For one thing, he's still not accustomed to being the guy who used to coach Oklahoma football for 18 years.
But at least it's not awful.
"It was really awful a year ago," he said at a news conference Wednesday before the SMU Athletic Forum. "That doesn't mean it was wrong.
"I anticipated it would be awful and it was, because it was so strange."
Strange is when the morning comes at 58, and there's no nowhere he has to be.