Right opportunity at the right time

ARLINGTON, Texas — When Bob Stoops stepped away from coaching in the summer of 2017 after 19 wildly successful seasons at Oklahoma, he didn't anticipate getting back into coaching.

Now, 20 months later, Stoops is a head coach once again.

Thursday, Stoops was named the coach and general manager of Dallas' XFL team.

“Everyone wants to define your life 'til the end of your life,” Stoops said in a lounge area at Globe Life Park, surrounded by people who mainly wanted to know why now and why the XFL? “Well, you never know. This wasn't an option when I stepped away.”

That desire didn't come back in a flood. Instead, it was a trickle.

“It's just little by little it happens,” Stoops said. “Heck, can't be on the golf course all

year when you live down this way. We've had too many bad weeks here in the last months in Oklahoma. That might've did it for me.

“Shoot, I've been in my house too much. I need to go out and do something.”

Even though he will be coaching the yet-unnamed team that begins play in February 2020, Stoops anticipates remaining a fixture with the Sooners' football program.

“It allows me to still be a part — to some degree — of being there for Joe Castiglione and being around the program some,” Stoops said.

The new job will primarily be a January through April endeavor for Stoops.

The Stoops family will remain — now and for the foreseeable future — in Oklahoma.

“The boys were born there,” Stoops' wife, Carol, said. “Our daughter, when we moved there she was 2

1/2. They were raised there, so it's always home to them and it'll always be home base for us. In this business — in the coaching world — it's always unheard of that your kids all went through school in the same town.”

Carol was there in the front row of Stoops' introduction, smiling as her husband recounted the reasons for taking this job while turning down others over the last two seasons — including other college jobs.

Stoops joked that Carol was “jumping up and down” when he decided to take the job.

“... I knew what I was doing then, just as I feel like I know this is the right opportunity right now.” Bob Stoops

“She wants me out of the house,” he said with a chuckle.

Carol said she wasn't celebrating quite that much, but she realized it was time for her husband to take on a new challenge, saying the coaching is an all-or-nothing proposition.

“I want him to be happy,” Carol said. “He's right, after awhile he did have just too much time.

“It was a good pause and he needed it. This came along probably at the perfect time.”

The timing of Stoops' departure in June 2017 left some wondering if there was an underlying reason. One reporter asked Wednesday if Stoops had been pushed out.

“You found out that it was actually a really good time, wasn't it? How's OU done since? Did they lose any recruits when I stepped down?,” Stoops said.

The transition has gone as well as could've been hoped for, with Oklahoma making back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances under Lincoln Riley and the Sooners' quarterbacks winning the Heisman Trophy the last two seasons.

Stoops still believes he made the right decision.

Does Stoops feel refreshed after taking a break from coaching?

“I did,” Stoops said. “I do. But I did within a few months after being out. Again, I knew what I was doing then, just as I feel like I know this is the right opportunity right now.”