The Atlanta Braves Thread

#218,430
#218,430
zjcvols said:
Stoops went 8-5 and was feeling (a little) heat and got blown out in the bowl game. Oklahoma had a top 25 offense with Trevor Knight, but they had a really bad defense (like bottom 40). Who so happened to coordinate that defense?

Mike Stoops.

Bob didn't want to fire his brother (who just recently got fired at Arizona). He then used Heupel and Jay Norvell as the scapegoats instead of firing his brother. He then hired Riley running basically the same system, who got the job in short order as HC when a lot of people assumed Heupel was next in line. Stoops hired Riley to fix Knight, which Riley did not do and instead gave the offense to Baker Mayfield. Riley fired Mike Stoops after Bob retired.

That's why Heupel holds such a grudge.
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Oh I remember it well. It ended up being a story nationally because of how controversial it was; can't imagine how much of a flashpoint it was in Norman. Bob did his little bro a solid - there's no doubt about that. The interesting thing though is that Heupel, through marriage, is related to the President of OU (at the time) and a former governor of Oklahoma/US Senator. So he was potentially ruffling feathers no matter what.

IMO the offensive performance was so bad in that bowl game that he thought it gave him enough cover to fire Heupel/Norvell and keep his brother, even though the defense got torched in that game too. They also went 11-2 the year before, with poor offensive performances being the reason for both losses (although they have up 36 and 41 points respectively in those games too).
 
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#218,440
#218,440
Having said that, it's still a fascinating statistic. I think the last road game we won against a top 15 team was UGA in 2006. Heup came close to breaking that streak three times already - UK was 18th when we beat them in Lexington in 2021, Pitt was 17th in 2022, and LSU was 25th in 2022.

For my own Negavol commentary - Heup has had some success on the road here but 5 of our last 6 losses have been away from Neyland. They seemed to struggle with communication in particular in Athens in 2022 and in Gainesville last year, environments which will be pretty similar to Norman.
 
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