Sooners ranked highly as one of the top programs for the 21st century

It was December of 1998 when new Oklahoma Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione and the program introduced former Florida defensive coordinator Bob Stoops as the next head football coach at OU. Stoops replaced John Blake, who’d led the program through three rough years before being fired by Castiglione following the 1998 season.

However, Stoops was really the hopeful replacement for the legendary Barry Switzer, who had resigned after the 1988 season. There were ten dark years in Norman, as the program shuffled through head coaches Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger, and Blake from 1989 to 1998, losing an unacceptable number of games in the process and fading from the national spotlight. None of those coaches was a suitable heir to Switzer, who had been OU’s head coach from 1973 to 1988 and won three national championships. Switzer had been at OU since 1966, serving as the offensive coordinator before his promotion to head coach.

Castiglione and the Sooners believed they had their next successful head coach in Stoops, and they were more than right. What has followed is 26 years where Oklahoma has been back in the spotlight, typically among the nation’s elite teams from 1999 to 2021. Although Stoops retired after the 2016 season, the success he set in motion has positioned OU at the forefront of the sport.

The Athletic took on the daunting task of ranking the best college football programs of the 21st century last week, and obviously, the Sooners were very high on the list. Oklahoma was ranked third, falling behind only Alabama and Ohio State. Though the list doesn’t include Stoops’ first year at the helm, it includes the rest of his head coaching career, and that of Lincoln Riley and Brent Venables.

Stoops led the Sooners to the first national championship of the 21st century, with a perfect season in 2000. The year…

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Publish date : 2025-07-20 12:02:00

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