Sooners fans must stick with Stoops

A few years ago, I wrote that University of Texas football fans shouldn't give up on coach Mack Brown after a run of defeats going up against Oklahoma and coach Bob Stoops.I think they called him "Big Game Bob" back then, earned in his 2000 national championship season when the Sooners beat the wrong Florida team (Florida State, which had lost head-to-head to Miami).I'm not right that often, but I was that time. I'm not saying Brown is greater than Stoops. Just as I did then, I repeat they are both good coaches and good for their universities.But Brown had been ridiculed across the Southwest, some saying he could never win a big game. He managed to beat Stoops with a superstar QB and then a freshman QB. And he won his own national title in 2005.Brown has guided Texas to 10 wins or better for the last seven years. He's not perfect, but he's very good.Stoops also had a good track record, except in big games. He recruits as much NFL talent to Norman as is humanly possible. But on the sideline, he has proven to be something less than the Father of Modern Football he was built up to be. And after winning a title in his second year, it was natural to be a little arrogant.But some of that ego has been deflated as the Sooners have lost four straight BCS bowl games. Defense, his staple, has come up lacking the past two Januarys yielding 91 points combined in losses to Boise State and West Virginia, neither of which pays their coach anything close to $2.5 million.Just as I didn't think anyone should overreact to Brown's losing skid versus Stoops, neither should they put too much heat on Stoops for being the only guy to lose to an interim coach this bowl season.His onside-kick decision in the third quarter of the 48-28 Fiesta Bowl loss last week could have potentially saved what looked like a sure loss. He knew better than anyone that his defense wasn't going to all of sudden stifle the Mountaineers.West Virginia wasn't overrated, as some in Oklahoma had suggested. It was a quarterback injury away from being in the FBC (Fake Bowl Championship) title game.Give me a guy who gets you in the position to contend for national titles on a semi-regular basis over a one-hit wonder any time. Stoops wins Big 12 titles, five in eight years, in what is really a conference championship sport.There was a time when no one thought Tom Osborne or Bobby Bowden would win anything significant. They were wrong.Stoops has lost a lot of big games. And eventually he'll win a succession of big games. One thing he has proven is that he's good enough to have his team in lots of big games.(Contact Andy Newberry of the Wichita Falls Times Record News at www.trnonline.com.)