Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno couldn’t manage it. Neither could Steve Spurrier. Or Woody Hayes. Or even Bear Bryant, for that matter.
Bob Stoops on Wednesday achieved something incredibly rare among college football coaching icons: He went out on top.
The timing may be odd, the circumstances unusual. But if the 56-year-old Stoops really is retiring on his own accord after 18 mostly glorious seasons as Oklahoma’s coach, he does so in the most triumphant fashion of any coach in his stratosphere since Nebraska’s Tom Osborne two decades ago.
Just last season, Stoops notched his second consecutive Big 12 championship and 11-2 campaign.