Bob Stoops may be on his way out at OU due to the fact that the OU faithful are becoming restless. In 2000 OU took it to everybody and won its first national championship in many years and the OU faithful saw nothing but a line of national championship of crystal football in their collective futures. But since then the program has suffered, and suffered severely in a humiliating loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship in 2003 just to be run down by LSU in the national championship game in New Orleans. The beating by Kansas State showed the vulnerability within the OU scheme offensively and defensively that has prevailed from that day forward. With recruiting missteps, the loss of coaches, and a quiet rumble of discontent starting to grow with the OU faithful.

Bob Stoops has been good for OU football. He came in and brought stability and renewed focus to a once proud program that had faltered over the years but he is now falling into the same trap as his predecessors. His teams were built on defense, defenses he built while he was at Florida and Kansas State. No one doubts Stoop's ability as a defensive coordinator and his ability to scheme. But he is not running his defense like he use to and with the loss of his brother Mike to Arizona (which that experiment has almost run its course also) Bob Stoops has seen his team and program starting to slip to average.

Texas has over taken OU in the local recruiting wars with A & M and Oklahoma State again gaining ground over an uninspired program as of late. When Stoops arrived in OU he had a program full of talent like Urban Meyer did in Florida and in his second year was able to achieve a National Championship. But since in the 2003 and 2004 seasons OU should not have been in those games for the National Championship OU began sliding on a slipper slope. While the polls said they should have many across the nation saw that they did not have the ability to win. But the voters wanted OU and USC in 03 and since they did not get that the BCS system was "adjusted" to get a favorable outcome to get the game the voters wanted in 03 but to the determent of OU in the long run.

Stoops overall record in his 8-years is good at an 86-19 with one national championship. But records on the face always look good but they tend to hide ugly facts that lie beneath such as those that have been mentioned earlier. With the loss last year to Boise State, a team everyone said OU would blow out, and even I thought in the end they would grind Boise down throughout the game, what in reality happened was OU again showed how vulnerable the program really is. While others in the Big 12 have been maintaining some consistency and others have been re-building OU has slipped under the leadership of Stoops.

What is now in question is his ability to lead the team with sound decision in hiring the right coaches, his ability in recruit selection and making sound decision as a head coach in adjusting his defensive and offensive schemes to best attack his opponents in the Big 12 and set the stage for contention. But as the program sits now OU is an average program that won't be able to climb the mountain unless Stoops can acknowledge what needs to be done.