Stoops, Brown working on rivalry for ages

KANSAS CITY -- Finally, the rock stars arrived at the downtown Marriott.

The two coaches that define Big 12 football. The two coaches who can walk through the lobby and turn heads. The two coaches who have brought Middle America its gridiron glory this century.

Mack Brown and Bob Stoops.

A Big 12 football carnival that for two days had been celebrity-challenged got a double dose Wednesday, the finale of media days.

Normally, the Big 12 separates its flagship programs, not because Sooners and Longhorns will grab butter knives over lunch and start street fighting, but because spotlight bulbs burn out when both heavyweights share the same day.

But the doubleheader was beneficial. Seeing these old lions -- 56-year-old Mack is turning gray, and Stoops, 47, has got to start someday soon -- one after another, within a matter of minutes, brought new clarity to their now-decade-old rivalry.

This Bob-and-Mack Show, already special, has a chance to be historic.

Neither coach shows signs of slowing down as they reach their 10th season of jostling each other for Big 12 South supremacy. Stay on their posts much longer, and Stoops and Brown will approach some of the greatest coaching rivalries in college football.

North of the Red River, the most epic of foes are Barry Switzer and Tom Osborne, Oklahoma-Nebraska combatants who dueled 17 times over 16 seasons.

Deep in the heart of Texas, the preferred flavor is Darrell Royal vs. Frank Broyles, who fenced 19 straight seasons in Texas-Arkansas games.

Royal-Broyles is the longest-running rivalry I found in an afternoon researching major-college football.

Will Stoops and Brown, after nine years of October collisions, last another decade to reach the standard of Royal and Broyles?

You know what? They just might.

Mack says he's going nowhere "as long as I'm healthy and as long as we're doing the job that's best for the University of Texas. If we're not doing our job and Texas could do better, then we would not be one of those that would want to stand in the way."

The only place Brown might go is the athletic director's chair, when DeLoss Dodds retires. For sure, the Longhorns will find no better coach. Mack has restored the Texas tradition, with 76 wins the last seven years and the 2005 national title.

Stoops has trumped even that, with 90 wins the last eight years, the 2000 national championship and five Big 12 titles, in a league in which no other coach has won more than one.

Stoops offered better-than-usual clues on why he's content in Norman.

He still works for the same president (David Boren) and athletic director (Joe Castiglione) who hired him. Also, the NFL is "not something today that's real intriguing to me, with my children the age they are (9-year-old twin boys and a 12-year-old daughter).

"But life changes."

Yes it does, which is why some great coaching rivalries flame out. Bobby Bowden and Steve Spurrier lasted just 12 seasons, when Spurrier got the hot foot for the pros. Joe Paterno and Don Nehlen lasted 13 years, until Penn State bolted for the Big Ten.

And the most famous of coaching rivalries, Woody Hayes vs. Bo Schembechler, stopped at 10 years when Hayes lost his mind and then his job, for slugging Clemson linebacker Charlie Baumann in the 1978 Gator Bowl.

Woody and Bo were mentor/protege, until Schembechler took the job at hated Michigan, and they feuded for a decade, though the rift was patched before their passing.

But other longstanding rivalries turn downright sentimental. Broyles and Royal were great buds. Switzer and Osborne -- two more different men God never made -- were great friends and still consort, two decades after their final showdown.

Stoops and Brown are somewhere in the middle of those extremes.

Truth is, it's impossible for counterpart coaches at Oklahoma and Texas to be very friendly. They leg-wrestle for the same recruits and the same trophies, and there is no room for compromise.

But the idea that these guys can't stand each other is silly, too, despite Stoops' occasional arrogance and Brown's occasional paranoia.

"I think we've always been very cordial and respectful of each other," said Stoops, who is 6-3 vs. Mack, the primary reason Stoops leads 5-1 in Big 12 titles. "That's always a little unfair. We never have a chance to be around each other. How can we be great friends with each other?

"It's unfair to expect us to be chummy when we're never around each other."

Well, Broyles and Royal managed it. But those were different times. Maybe simple respect is as much as we can expect, and there is no doubt simple respect exists between Stoops and Brown.

"Bob's done a great job," Mack said. "You think about Oklahoma and what he's done, anyone who questions him will be very disappointed after he's gone. Bob and I get along great."

Stoops and Brown are at 10 years and counting. Go 10 more, and they will be the most storied coaching rivals in college football history.

FACE OFF

The longest-running college football coaching rivalries since World War II:

-- 19 years: Darrell Royal, Texas & Frank Broyles, Arkansas, 1958-76. Royal led 14-5.

-- 18 years: Bear Bryant, Alabama & Shug Jordan, Auburn, 1958-75. Bryant led 13-5.

-- 17: Ben Schwartzwalder, Syracuse & Rip Engle, Penn State, 1950-66. Schwartzwalder led 10-7.

-- 16 years: Wally Butts, Georgia & Bobby Dodd, Georgia Tech, 1945-60. Dodd led 9-7.

-- 16 years: Barry Switzer, Oklahoma & Tom Osborne, Nebraska, 1973-88. Switzer led 12-5.

-- 16 years: Don James, Washington & Rich Brooks, Oregon, 1977-92. James led 13-3.

-- 16 years: Bear Bryant, Alabama & Charley McClendon, LSU, 1964-79. Bryant led 14-2.

-- 15 years: Lavell Edwards, BYU & Fisher DeBerry, Air Force, 1984-2000. Edwards led 12-3.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)