Exclusive: Bob Stoops Talks Retirement, College Football, and the Sooners’ 2025 Outlook

Bob Stoops may be retired from coaching college football, but don’t call him “slowing down.” Between coaching the XFL’s Renegades, serving on the College Football Hall of Fame selection committee, and making regular radio appearances, Stoops’ schedule is packed from morning to night.

In this exclusive Q&A, he opens up about life after OU, the joys of coaching purely for the love of the game, his thoughts on Oklahoma’s upcoming season, and the lessons he’s carried from decades of leading teams through pressure, adversity, and championship runs.

Exclusive Q&A with Bob Stoops

Toby: Coach, you are the busiest retired person I've ever seen in my life. You're either in Los Angeles or coaching the Renegades or you're on the selection committee for the College Football Hall of Fame.

Stoops: I’ve got KREF twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays.

Toby: This retirement thing is wearing you out.

Stoops: You know what's crazy about it? It kind of is. I used to have a schedule. Now, without a schedule, I agree to too many things, or it's in the middle of the day, so it fills up the beginning of the day or the afternoon. I've got to do a better job scheduling myself.

Toby: You’ve got to go back to coaching college football to relax a little bit.

Stoops: Well, and then I had an excuse for seven months. Don't bother me. I'm coaching. But I'm finding my way.

Toby: Are you still enjoying coaching the Renegades?

Stoops: I am, you know, the guys are really a lot of fun. There's no babysitting whatsoever. Whenever I leave practice, I don't have to call Johnny's parents because Johnny won't go to class. I don't have Johnny home sick. He misses his girlfriend. I don't have an academic or compliance meeting after, you know, all of it's just football.

Toby: In this day and age, you don't have NIL or the transfer portal to worry about either.

Stoops: No, and it's just the guys that love football. That's why they're still playing. So it's really been a joy to coach these guys and be around them.

Toby: How much longer do you think you’ll do it?

Stoops: I’m not sure. You just never know from year to year what else is happening, but I've really enjoyed it to this point and it's good football and good players.

Toby: Let me ask you about Oklahoma going into this season. They bring in John Mateer and Ben Arbuckle. The offense has to be better. How good do you feel like they could be this year?

Stoops: I feel they're going to be really good. I I really do. I think Ben Arbuckle and John Mateer, the team of them, and you’ve got to have the guys around them. No quarterback’s doing it by himself. I've been so aware of that through the years. But I just believe they're really quality people and a great coach and a great quarterback that's been proven and they're familiar with each other. I think that's going to really help and I hope it goes that way. I’ve really got a ton of confidence in coach Venables with the defense. So all of it together, I'm optimistic, definitely.

Toby: You love defense. And what BV’s done the last four years, and especially if you look at the defense going into this year has to excite you?

Stoops: Absolutely. And up front, it sounds like we’ve got one of the better front fours or front sevens in football, which is really great. You know that's where it all begins and they've recruited really well. They've really worked hard. So on the other side, on the offensive line, Coach Bedenbaugh is proven. If you're going to trust anybody with a young or inexperienced o-line, it's him. So I'm very optimistic and I really believe in the staff and what they're doing.

Toby: This is the SEC. Coach Venables is facing some heat. He needs to win this year. As successful as you were, there were years where you faced some heat as well. Any advice for a coach going through something like that?

Stoops: Yeah, Brent doesn't need any advice and he’s gonna do the same thing I always did. You put your head down. You fight every day to get better, to improve and as you go through the year, what you started, you should be a lot better as you get mid year and towards the end of the year. Keep building the team. Keep building depth and you know that no one's more competitive than we are, and no one wants to win more than we do. All of that noise falls on deaf ears when you're in the building and working it, you know, because we're invested in it and and I know Brent is in every way. I've got great confidence in him.

Toby: You told me a story one time about when you were in the middle of it, and you gave yourself a pep talk right in the car before you went in one day.

Stoops: I want to say it might have been 2016, my last year.

We happen to be 1-2 in the first three games. We lost to Houston and we lost another tight one. And I know everybody's looking at the head guy. And you have to project confidence, belief in what you're doing and be steadfast in what you know works and how to be successful. And project it and give people the confidence to keep moving forward. We didn't lose another game the rest of the year and ended up beating Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. So point being, yes, you just have to keep grinding, but as the leader you’ve got to be the one when everyone looks at you, that they still believe we're going to win, and you’ve got to project that.

Toby: I would have loved to have heard the pep talk Bob Stoops gave Bob Stoops in that car.

Stoops: Yeah, cuz you know, you go through Sunday after losing and we hadn't been 1-2. I don't think ever. I'm sure it was good.

You know you're checking. You know your cards when they get seven card stud? You check your whole card, and they keep looking at you checking your whole card when you're in that position. Then you've got to keep going and we turned it around.

Toby: Looking for a new athletic director at the University of Oklahoma? You are a part of the search committee. That's an honor first and foremost to be on the committee. What are the characteristics or skills that you're looking for in this day and age to be an athletic director?

Stoops: That's going to all become public. We had our first meeting this week. I'd let Randall Stephenson come out with that when it's the right time on what all the qualifications and what all they're looking for. My compliments and respect to Joe Castiglione and obviously we worked together so closely for all those years and still do. Joe's the best and has done an incredible job here at OU. I know everyone thanks him and is appreciative of of that hard work and it'll be tough to move on from Joe, but yet you know at some point you have to and so I'm sure through time, and the nice thing is we have some time, to find the ideal person that really fits Oklahoma.

Toby: You could be the ideal person?

Stoops: No, no, no, I can't. No. If I was going to work that hard, like Joe knows, I'd still be coaching at OU. So no, that I'm not. I'm not a candidate for sure.

Toby: Any interest in going back into television? You were great on the Fox pregame show.

Stoops: I loved it. You know, the team of people on Fox Big Noon Kickoff, they're wonderful. I really enjoyed it. I would consider it at some point, but I'll be honest. The travel wasn't the best. You don't get many places from Norman in one flight other than LA. You know when you're going to other universities, two flights. So you're talking four flights in three days and they don't always connect. So that part of it turned me.

Toby: College football. Is it going to be ok?

Stoops: Oh yeah, yeah. I've said a lot that 10-12 years ago we should have been sharing money with players and we could have grown with it this whole time. Instead, it all blew up and now we're trying to figure it out, dig out from under the hole. But we will, you know, college football will. And it's too good of a product not to. We've got to get some guidelines to it all and some parameters that are realistic. I mean, the NFL doesn't just do what they want to do, everybody, every other team. I mean, we're in a pro model now. So we've got to start acting like it and get some kind of definition to what the rules are.

Toby: How many teams should be in the Playoffs?

Stoops: I've always said eight.

Toby: So less?

Stoops: Yes. I just don't believe in bad games. This past year when #5 played the #12 team…wasn't a good game. When #6 played the #11 team…wasn't a very good game. I can go on and on, and then all the teams in the beginning that had byes, because they're sitting there stale for too long, they lost. To me 12 is too many. Sixteen will for sure be too many. I'm a big fan of just eight, so everyone plays from the start and plays through.